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THE IRON FURNACE: 



OR, 



. SLAYERY AND SECESSION. 



BY 

REV. JOHN H. AUGHEY, 

A REFUGEE FROM MISSISSIPPI. 



Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, which I 
commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land 
of Egypt, from the Iron Furnace Jer. xi. 3, 4. See also, 1 Kings viii. 51. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN. 

606 CHESTNUT STREET. 

1863. 




Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1863, 

By WILLIAM S. & ALFRED MARTIEN, 

In the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



i:45S 

. a. 



♦ 

m 

TO MY PERSON At FRIENDS 

REV. CHARLES C. BEATTY, D. D., LL.D.,' 

OF STEUBENVILLE, OHIO, 

Moderator of the General Assembly of the (0. S.) Presby- 
terian Church in the United States of America, 
and long Pastor of the Church in which 
my parents were members, and 
our family worshippers ; 

REV. WILLIAM PRATT BREED, 

Pastor of the West Spruce Street Presbyterian Church, of 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 

GEORGE HAY STUART, Esq., 

OF PHILADELPHIA, PA., 

The Philanthropist, whose virtues are known and 
appreciated in both hemispheres, 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



PREFACE. 



A celebrated author thus writes : " Posterity- 
is under no obligations to a man who is not a 
parent, who has never planted a tree, built a 
house, nor written a book." Having fulfilled 
all these requisites to insure the remembrance 
of posterity, it remains to be seen whether the 
author's name shall escape oblivion. 

It may be that a few years will obliterate the 
name affixed to this Preface from the memory 
of man. This thought is the cause of no con- 
cern. I shall have accomplished my purpose 
if I can in some degree be humbly instrumen- 
tal in serving my country and my generation, 
by promoting the well-being of my fellow- 
men, and advancing the declarative glory of 
Almighty God. 

This work was written while suffering in- 
tensely from maladies induced by the rigours 
of the Iron Purnace of Secession, whose seven- 
fold heat is reserved for the loyal citizens of 
1* (5) 



6 PKEFACE. 

the South. Let this fact be a palliation for 
whatever imperfections the reader may meet 
with in its perusal. 

There are many loyal men in the southern 
States, who to avoid martyrdom, conceal their 
opinions. They are to be pitied — not severely 
censured. All those southern ministers and 
professors of religion who were eminent for 
piety, opposed secession till the States passed 
the secession ordinance. They then advocated 
reconstruction as long as it comported with 
their safety. They then, in the face of danger 
and death, became quiescent — not acquiescent, 
by any means — and they now "bide their time," 
in prayerful trust that God will, in his own 
good time, subvert rebellion, and overthrow 
anarchy, by a restoration of the supremacy of 
constitutional law. By these, and their name 
is legion, my book will be warmly approved. 
My fellow-prisoners in the dungeon at Tupelo, 
who may have survived its horrors, and my 
fellow-sufferers in the Union cause throughout 
the South, will read in my narrative a tran- 
script of their own sufferings. The loyal citi- 
zens of the whole country will be interested in 
learning: the views of one who has been con- 
versant with the rise and progress of secession, 
from its incipiency to its culmination in rebel- 



PREFACE. 7 

lion and treason. It will also doubtless be of 
general interest to learn something of the 
workings of the "peculiar institution/' and the 
various phases which it assumes in different 
sections of the slave States. 

Compelled to leave Dixie in haste, I had no 
time to collect materials for my work. I was 
therefore under the necessity of writing with- 
out those aids which would have secured greater 
accuracy. I have done the best that I could 
under the circumstances; and any errors that 
may have crept into my statements of facts, or 
reports of addresses, will be cheerfully rectified 
as soon as ascertained. 

That" I might not compromise the safety of 
my Union friends who rendered me assistance, 
and who are still within the rebel lines, I was 
compelled to omit their names, and for the 
same reason to describe rather indefinitely some 
localities, especially the portions of Ittawamba, 
Chickasaw, Pontotoc, Tippah, and Tishomingo 
counties, through which I travelled while 
escaping to the Federal lines. This I hope to 
be able to correct in future editions. 

Narratives require a liberal use of the first 
personal pronoun, which I would have gladly 
avoided, had it been possible without tedious 



8 PKEFACE. 

circumlocution, as its frequent repetition lias 
the appearance of egotism. 

I return sincere thanks to my fellow-prisoners 
who imperilled their own lives to save mine, 
and also to those Mississippi Unionists who so 
generously aided a panting fugitive on his way 
from chains and death to life and liberty. My 
thanks are also due to Rev. William P. Breed, 
for assistance in preparing my work for the 
press. 

I am also under obligations to Rev. Francis 
J. Collier, of Philadelphia ; to Rev. A. D. 
Smith, D. D., and Rev. J. R. W. Sloane, of 
New York, and to Rev. F. B. Wheeler, of 
Poughkeepsie, New York. 

May the Triune God bless our country, and 
preserve its integrity ! 

JOHN HILL AUGKHEY. 
February 1, 1863. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

SECESSION. 

Speech of Colonel Drane — Submission Denounced — North- 
ern Aggression — No more Slave States — Northern isms — 
Yankees' Servants — Yankee inferiority — Breckinridge, 
or immediate, complete, and eternal Separation— A Day 
of Rejoicing — Abraham Lincoln, President elect — A 
Union Speech — A Southerner's Reasons for opposing 
Secession — Address by a Radical Secessionist — Cursing 
and Bitterness — A Prayer — Sermon against Secession — 
List of Grievances — Causes which led to Secession, 13 — 49 



CHAPTEE II. 

VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL. 

The election of Delegates to determine the status of Missis- 
sippi — The Vigilance Committee — Description of its mem- 
bers — Charges — Phonography — No formal verdict — Dan- 
ger of Assassination — Passports — Escape to Rienzi — • 
Union sentiment — The Conscript Law — Summons to at- 
tend Court-Martial — Evacuation of Corinth — Destruction 
of Cotton — Suifering poor — Relieved by General Hal- 
leck 50—69 



CHAPTEE III. 

ARREST, ESCAPE, AND RECAPTURE. 

High price of Provisions — Holland Lindsay's Family — The 
arrest — Captain Hill — Appearance before Colonel Brad- 
fute at Fulton — Arrest of Ben]amin Clarke — Bradfnte's 

(9) 



10 CONTENTS. 

Insolence — General Chalmers — The clerical Spy — Gene- 
ral Pfeifer — Under guard — Priceville — General Gordon — 
Bound for Tupelo — The Prisoners entering the Dungeon — 
Captain Bruce — Lieutenant Richard Malone — Prison Fare 
and Treatment — Menial Service — Resolve to escape — 
Plan of escape — Federal Prisoners — Co-operation of the 
Prisoners — Declaration of Independence — The Escape — 
The Separation — Concealment — Travel on the Under- 
ground Railroad — Pursuit by Cavalry and Bloodhounds — 
The Arrest — Dan Barnes, the Mail-robber — Perfidy — 
Heavily ironed — Return to Tupelo 70 — 112 



CHAPTER IY. 

LIFE IN A DUNGEON. 

Parson Aughey as Chaplain — Description of the Prisoners — 
Colonel Walter, the Judge Advocate — Charges and Speci- 
fications against Parson Aughey, a Citizen of the Con- 
federate States — Execution of two Tennesseeans — En- 
listment of Union Prisoners — Colonel Walter's second 
visit — Day of Execution specified — Farewell Letter to 
my Wife — Parson Aughey's Obituary penned by him- 
self — Address to his Soul — The Soul's Reply — Farewell 
Letter to his Parents — The Union Prisoners' Petition to 
Hon. W. H. Seward — The two Prisoners and the Oath of 
Allegiance — Irish Stories 113 — 142 



CHAPTER Y. 

EXECUTION OF UNION PRISONERS. 

Resolved to Escape — Mode of Executing Prisoners — Re- 
moval of Chain — Addition to our Numbers — Two Prison- 
ers become Insane — Plan of Escape — Proves a Failure — 
Fetters Inspected — Additional Fetters — Handcuffs — A 
Spy in the Disguise of a Prisoner — Special Police Guard 
on Duty — A Prisoner's Discovery — Divine Services — The 
General Judgment — The Judge — The Laws — The Wit- 
nesses — The Concourse — The Sentence 143 — 107 



CONTENTS. 11 



CHAPTEE VI. 



SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE. 

The Second Plan of Escape — Under the Jail — Egress — 
Among the Guards — In the Swamp — Travelling on the 
Underground Railroad — The Fare — Green Corn eaten 
Raw — Blackberries and Stagnant Water — The Blood- 
hounds — Tantalizing Dreams — The Pickets — The Cows — 
Become Sick — Fons Beatus — Find Friends — Union Friend 
No. Two — The night in the Barn — Death of Newman by 
Scalding — Union Friend No. Three — Bound for the Union 
Lines — Rebel Soldiers — Black Ox — Pied Ox — Reach 
Headquarters in Safety — Emotions on again beholding 
the Old Flag — Kindness while Sick — Meeting with his 
Family — Richard Malone again — The Serenade — Leave 
Dixie — Northward bound 168 — 211 



CHAPTER VII. 



SOUTHERN CLASSES— CRUELTY TO SLAVES. 

Sandhillers — Dirt-eating — Dipping — Their Mode of Living — 
Patois — Rain-book — Wife- trade — Coming in to see the 
Cars — Superstition — Marriage of Kinsfolks — Hardshell 
Sermon — Causes which lead to the Degradation of this 
Class — Efforts to Reconcile the Poor Whites to the Pecu- 
liar Institution — The Slaveholding Class — The Middle 
Class — Northeim isms — Incident at a Methodist Minister's 
House — Question asked a Candidate for Licensure — Rea- 
son of Southern Hatred toward the North — Letter to Mr. 
Jackman — Barbarities and Cruelties of Slavery — Mulat- 
toes — Old Cole — Child Born at Whipping-post — Advertise- 
ment of a Keeper ©f Bloodhounds — Getting Rid of Free 
Blacks — The Doom of Slavery — Methodist Church 
'South 212—248 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE VIII. 

NOTORIOUS REBELS.— UNION OFFICERS. 

Colonel Jefferson Davis — His Speech at Holly Springs, Mis- 
sissippi — His Opposition to Yankee Teachers and Minis- 
ters — A bid for the Presidency — His Ambition — Burr, 
Arnold, Davis. — General Beauregard — Headquarters at 
Rienzi — Colonel Elliott's Raid — Beauregard's Consterna- 
tion — Personal description — His illness — Popularity wan- 
ing. — Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans — His influence — 
The Cincinnati Letter — His Personal Appearance — His 
Denunciations of General Butler — His Radicalism. — Rev. 
Dr. Waddell of La Grange, Tennessee — His Prejudices 
against the North — President of Memphis Synodical Col- 
lege—His Talents prostituted. — Union Officers — General 
Nelson — General Sherman 249 — 263 



CHAPTER IX. 

CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. 

Cause of the Rebellion — Prevalence of Union Sentiment in 
the South — Why not Developed — Stevenson's Views — Why 
Incorrect — Cavalry Raids upon Union Citizens — How the 
Rebels employ Slaves — Slaves Whipped and sent out of 
the Federal Lines — Resisting the Conscript Law — Kansas 
Jayhawkers — Guarding Rebel Property — Perfidy of Seces- 
sionists — Plea for Emancipation — The South Exhausted — 
Failure of Crops — Southern Merchants Ruined — Bragg 
Prohibits the Manufacture and Vending of Intoxicating 
Liquors — Its Salutary Effect 204 — 281 



CHAPTER X. 

BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH. 

Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners — The Fratricide — Grant De- 
feated — Saved by Gunboats — Buell's Advance — Railroad 
Disaster — The South Despondent — General Rosecrans — 
Secession will become Odious even in the Smith — 
Poem 2b2— 29ti 



THE IRON FURNACE; 

OK 

SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 



CHAPTER I. 

SECESSION. 

Speech of Colonel Drane.— Submission Denounced.— North- 
ern Aggression.— No more Slave States.— Northern isms. — 
Yankees' Servants.— Yankee inferiority.— Breckinridge, 
or immediate, complete, and eternal Separation. — A Day 
of Rejoicing. — Abraham Lincoln President elect.— A 
Union Speech.— A Southerner's Reasons for opposing 
Secession. — Address by a Radical Secessionist.— Cursing 
and Bitterness. — A Prayer. — Sermon against Secession. — 
List of Grievances. — Causes which led to Secession. 

At the breaking out of the present rebellion, I 
was engaged in the work of an Evangelist in 
the counties of Choctaw and Attala in Central 
Mississippi. My congregations were large, and 
my duties onerous. Being constantly employed 
in ministerial labours, I had no time to inter- 
meddle with politics, leaving all such questions 
2 [13] 



14 THE IRON" FURNACE; OR 

to statesmen, giving the complex issues of the 
day only sufficient attention to enable me to 
vote intelligently. Thus was I engaged when 
the great political campaign of 1860 com- 
menced — a campaign conducted with greater 
virulence and asperity than any I have ever 
witnessed. During my casual detention at a 
store, Colonel Drane arrived, according to 
appointment, to address the people of Choctaw. 
He was a member of one of my congregations, 
and as he had been long a leading statesman in 
Mississippi, having for many years presided 
over the State Senate, I expected to hear a 
speech of marked ability, unfolding the true 
issues before the people, with all the dignity, 
suavity, and earnestness of a gentleman and 
patriot; but I found his whole speech to be a 
tirade of abuse against the North, commingled 
with the bold avowal of treasonable sentiments. 
The Colonel thus addressed the people : 

My Fellow- Citizens — I appear before you 
to urge anew resistance against the encroach- 
ments and aggressions of the Yankees. If the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 15 

Black Kepublicans carry their ticket, and Old 
Abe is elected, our right to carry our slaves 
into the territories will be denied us ; and who 
dare say that he would be a base, craven submis- 
sionist, when our God-given and constitutional 
right to carry slavery into the common domain 
is wickedly taken from the South. The Yan- 
kees cheated us out of Kansas by their infernal 
Emigrant Aid Societies. They cheated us out 
of California, which our blood-treasure pur- 
chased, for the South sent ten men to one that 
was sent by the North to the Mexican war, and 
thus we have no foothold on the Pacific coast ; 
and even now we pay five dollars for the sup- 
port of the general Government where the 
North pays one. We help to pay bounties to 
the Yankee fishermen in New England ; indeed 
we are always paying, paying, paying, and yet 
the North is always crying, Give, give, give. 
The South has made the North rich, and what 
thanks do we receive? Our rights are tram- 
pled on, our slaves are spirited by thousands 
over their underground railroad to Canada, our 
citizens are insulted while travelling in the 



16 THE IROX FURNACE; OR 

North ; and their servants are tampered with, 
and by false representations, and often by mob 
violence,, forced from them. Douglas, knowing 
the power of the Emigrant Aid Societies, pro- 
poses squatter sovereignty, with the positive 
certainty that the scum of Europe and the 
mudsills of Yankeedom can be shipped in in 
numbers sufficient to control the destiny of the 
embryo State. Since the admission of Texas 
in 1845, there has not been a single foot of 
slave territory secured to the South, while the 
North has added to their list the extensive 
States of California, Minnesota, and Oregon, 
and Kansas is as good as theirs ; while, if Lin- 
coln is elected, the Wilmot proviso will be 
extended over all the common territories, 
debarring the South for ever from her right to 
share the public domain. 

The hypocrites of the North tell us that 
slaveholding is sinful. "Well, suppose it is. 
Upon us and our children let the guilt of this 
sin rest; we are willing to bear it, and it is 
none of their business. "We are a more moral 
people than they are. Who originated Mor- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 17 

monism, Millerism, Spirit-rappings, Abolition- 
ism, Free-loveisrn, and all the other abominable 
isms which cnrse the world? The reply is, the 
* North. Their puritanical fanaticism and hypo- 
crisy is patent to all. Talk to us of the sin of 
slavery, when the only difference between us is 
that our slaves are black and theirs white. 
They treat their white slaves, the Irish and 
Dutch, in a cruel manner, giving them during 
health just enough to purchase coarse clothing, 
and when they become sick, they are turned 
off to starve, as they do by hundreds every 
year. A female servant in the North must 
have a testimonial of good character before 
she will be employed; those with whom she 
is labouring will not give her this so long 
as they desire her services; she therefore can- 
not leave them, whatever may be her treat- 
ment, so that she is as much compelled to 
remain with her employer as the slave with 

his master. 

Their servants hate them; ours love us. My 

niggers would fight for me and my family. 

They have been treated well, and they know it. 



o« 



18 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

And I don't treat my slaves any better than my 
neighbours. If ever there comes a war between 
the North and the South, let us do as Abraham 
did — arm our trained servants, and go forth 
with them to the battle. They hate the Yan- 
kees as intensely as we do, and nothing could 
please our slaves better than to fight them. 
Ah, the perfidious Yankees! I cordially hate 
a Yankee. We have all suffered much at their 
hands ; they will not keep faith with us. Have 
they complied with the provisions of the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law? The thousands and tens of 
thousands of slaves aided in their escape to 
Canada, is a sufficient answer. We have lost 
millions, and are losing millions every year, by 
the operations of the underground railroad. 
How deep the perfidy of a people, thus to vio- 
late every article of compromise we have made 
with them ! The Yankees are an inferior race, 
descended from the old Puritan stock, who 
enacted the Blue Laws. They are desirous of 
compelling us to submit to laws more iniqui- 
tous than ever were the Blue Laws. I have 
travelled in the North, and have seen the depth 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 19 

of their depravity. Now, my fellow-citizens, 
what shall we do to resist Northern aggression ? 
Why simply this: if Lincoln or Douglas are 
elected, (as to the Bell-Everett ticket, it stands 
no sort of chance,) let us secede. This remedy 
will be effectual. I am in favour of no more 
compromises. Let us have Breckinridge, or 
immediate, complete/ and eternal separation. 

The speaker then retired amid the cheers of 
his audience. 

Soon after this there came a day of rejoic- 
ing to many in Mississippi. The booming of 
cannon, the joyous greeting, the soul-stirring 
music, indicated that no ordinary intelligence 
had been received. The lightnings had brought 
the tidings that Abraham Lincoln was Presi- 
dent elect of the United States, and the South 
was wild with excitement. Those who had 
been long desirous of a pretext for secession, 
now boldly advocated their sentiments, and 
joyfully hailed the election of Mr. Lincoln as 
affording that pretext. The conservative men 
were filled with gloom. They regarded the 



20 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



election of Mr. Lincoln, by the majority of the 
people of the United States, in a constitutional 
way, as affording no cause for secession. 
Secession they regarded as fraught with all the 
evils of Pandora's box, and that war, famine, 
pestilence, and moral and physical desolation 
would follow in its train. A call was made by 
Governor Pettus for a convention to assemble 
early in January, at Jackson, to determine what 
course Mississippi should pursue, whether her 
policy should be submission or secession. 

Candidates, Union and Secession, were nomi- 
nated for the convention in every county. The 
speeches of two, whom I heard, will serve as a 
specimen of the arguments used pro and con. 
Captain Love, of Choctaw, thus addressed the 
people. 

My Fellow-Citizens — I appear before you 
to advocate the Union — the Union of the States 
under whose favoring auspices we have long 
prospered. No nation so great, so prosperous, 
so happy, or so much respected by earth's 
thousand kingdoms, as the Great Republic, by 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 21 

which name- the United States is known from 
the rivers to the ends of the earth. Our flao\ 
the star-spangled banner, is respected on every 
sea, and affords protection to the citizens of 
every State, whether amid the pyramids of 
Egypt, the jungles of Asia, or the mighty 
cities of Europe. Our Republican Constitution, 
framed by the wisdom of our Eevolutionary 
fathers, is as free from imperfection as any 
document drawn up by uninspired men. God 
presided over the councils of that convention 
which framed our glorious Constitution. They 
asked wisdom from on high, and their prayers 
were answered. Free speech, a free press, and 
freedom to worship Grod as our conscience dic- 
tates, under our own vine and fig-tree, none 
daring to molest or make us afraid, are 
some of the blessings which our Constitution 
guarantees; and these prerogatives, which we 
enjoy, are features which bless and distin- 
guish us from the other nations of the earth. 
Freedom of speech is unknown amongst them ; 
among them a censorship of the press and a 
national church are established. 



22 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

Our country, by its physical features, seems 
fitted for but one nation. What ceaseless trou- 
ble would be caused by having the source of 
our rivers in one country and the mouth in 
another. There are no natural boundaries to 
divide us into separate nations. We are all 
descended from the same common parentage, 
we all speak the same language, and we have 
really no conflicting interests, the statements of 
our opponents to the contrary notwithstanding. 
Our opponents advocate separate State seces- 
sion. Would not Mississippi cut a sorry figure 
among the nations of the earth ? With no 
harbour, she would be dependent on a foreign 
nation for an outlet. Custom-house duties 
would be ruinous, and the republic of Missis- 
sippi would find herself compelled to return to 
the Union. Mississippi, you remember, repu- 
diated a large foreign debt some years ago; if 
she became an independent nation, her credi- 
tors would influence their government to 
demand payment, which could not be refused 
hj the weak, defenceless, navyless, armyless, 
moneyless, repudiating republic of Mississippi. 



V 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 23 

To pay this debt, with the accumulated inter- 
est, would ruin the new republic, and bank- 
ruptcy would stare us in the face. 

It is true, Abraham Lincoln is elected 
President of the United States. My plan is to 
wait till Mr. Lincoln does something unconsti- 
tutional. Then let the South unanimously seek 
redress in a constitutional manner. The con- 
servatives of the North will join us. If no 
redress is made, let us present our ultimatum. 
If this, too, is rejected, I for one will not advo- 
cate submission ; and by the cooperation of all 
the slave States, we will, in the event of the 
perpetration of wrong, and a refusal to redress 
our grievances, be much abler to secure our 
rights, or to defend them at the cannon's 
mouth and the point of the bayonet. The 
Supreme Court favours the South. In the 
Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court decided 
that the neorro was not a citizen, and that the 
slave was a chattel, as we regard him. The 
majority of Congress on joint ballot is still with 
the South. Although we have something to 



24 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

fear from the views of the President elect and 
the Chicago platform, let us wait till some 
overt act, trespassing upon our rights, is com- 
mitted, and all redress denied; then, and not 
till then, will I advocate extreme measures. 

Let our opponents remember that secession 
and civil war are synonymous. "Who ever heard 
of a government breaking to pieces without an 
arduous struggle for its preservation? I admit 
the right of revolution, when a people's rights 
cannot otherwise be maintained, but deny the 
right of secession. "We are told that it is a 
reserved right. The constitution declares that 
all rights not specified in it are reserved to the 
people of the respective States; but who ever 
heard of the right of total destruction of the 
government being a reserved right in any con- 
stitution? The fallacy is evident at a glance. 
Nine millions of people can afford to wait for 
some overt act. Let us not follow the precipi- 
tate course which the ultra politicians indicate. 
Let W. L. Yancey urge his treasonable policy 
of firing the Southern heart and precipitating a 



SLAVERY AXD SECESSION. 25 

revolution; but let us follow no such wicked 
advice. Let us follow the things which make 
for peace. 

We are often told that the North will 
not return fugitive slaves. Will secession 
remedy this grievance? Will secession give 
us any more slave territory ? No free govern- 
ment ever makes a treaty for the rendition of 
fugitive slaves — thus recognising the rights of 
the citizens of a foreign nation to a species of 
property which it denies to its own citizens. 
Even little Mexico will not do it. Mexico and 
Canada return no fugitives. In the event of 
secession, the United States would return no 
fugitives, and our peculiar institution would, 
along our vast border, become very insecure; 
we would hold our slaves by a very slight 
tenure. Instead of extending the great South- 
ern institution, it would be contracting daily. 
Our slaves would be held to service at their 
own option, throughout the whole border, and 
our gulf States would soon become border 
States; and the great insecurity of this species 
of property would work, before twenty years, 
3 



26 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

the extinction of slavery, and, in consequence, 
the ruin of the South. Are we prepared for 
such a result? Are we prepared for civil war? 
Are we prepared for all the evils attendant 
upon a fratricidal contest — for bloodshed, 
famine, and political and moral desolation? 
I reply, we are not; therefore let us look 
before we leap, and avoiding the heresy of 
secession — 

" Rather bear the ills we have, 
Than fly to others that we know not of." 

A secession speaker was introduced, and 
thus addressed the people : 

Ladies and Gentlemen — Fellow-Citizens 
—I am a secessionist out and out; voted for 
Jeff Davis for Governor in 1850, when the 
same issue was before the people; and I have 
always felt a grudge against the free state of 
Tishomingo for giving H. S. Foote, the Union 
candidate, a majority so great as to elect him, 
and thus retain the State in this accursed 
Union ten years longer. Who would be a 
craven-hearted, cowardly, villanous submis- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 27 

sionist? Lincoln, the abominable, white-liv- 
ered abolitionist, is President elect of the 
United States; shall he be permitted to take 
his seat on Southern soil? No, never! I will 
volunteer as one of thirty thousand, to butcher 
the villain if ever he sets foot on slave terri- 
tory. Secession or submission! What patriot 
would hesitate for a moment which to choose? 
No true son of Mississippi would brook the 
idea of submission to the rule of the baboon 
Abe Lincoln — a fifth-rate lawyer, a broken- 
down hack of a politician, a fanatic, an aboli- 
litionist. I, for one, would prefer an hour of 
virtuous liberty to a whole eternity of bondage 
under northern, Yankee, wooden-nutmeg rule. 
The halter is the only argument that should be 
used against the submissionists, and I predict 
that it will soon, very soon, be in force. 

We have glorious news from Tallahatchie. 
Seven tory-submissionists were hanged there in 
one day, and the so-called Union candidates, 
having the wholesome dread of hemp before 
their eyes, are not canvassing the county; 
therefore the heretical dogma of submission, 



28 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

under any circumstances, disgraces not their 
county. , Compromise! let us have no such 
word in our vocabulary. Compromise with 
the Yankees, after the election of Lincoln, is 
treason against the South; and still its syren 
voice is listened to by the demagogue submis- 
sionists. We should never have made any 
compromise, for in every case we surrendered 
rights for the sake of peace. No concession of 
the scared Yankees will now prevent secession. 
They now understand that the South is in ear- 
nest, and in their alarm they are proposing to 
yield us much ; but the die is cast, the Eub'icon 
is crossed, and our determination shall ever be, 
No union with the flat-headed, nigger-stealing, 
fanatical Yankees. 

We are now threatened with internecine 
war. The Yankees are an inferior race; they 
are cowardly in the extreme. They are de- 
scended from the Puritan stock, who never 
bore rule in any nation. We, the descendants 
of the Cavaliers, are the Patricians, they the 
Plebeians. The Cavaliers have always been the 
rulers, the Puritans the ruled. The dastardly 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 29 

Yankees will never fight us; but if they, in 
their presumption and audacity, venture to 
attack us, let the war come — I repeat it — let it 
come! The conflagration of their burning 
cities, the desolation of their country, and the 
slaughter of their inhabitants, will strike the 
nations of the earth dumb with astonishment, 
and serve as a warning to future a^es, that the 
slaveholding Cavaliers of the sunny South are 
terrible in their vengeance. I am in favour of 
immediate, independent, and eternal separation 
from the vile Union which has so long 
oppressed us. After separation, I am in favour 
of non-intercourse with the United States so 
long as time endures. We will raise the tariff, 
to the point of prohibition, on all Yankee man- 
ufactures, including wooden-nutmegs, wooden 
clocks, quack nostrums, &c. We will drive 
back to their own inhospitable clime every 
Yankee who dares to pollute our shores with 
his cloven feet, (to he must, and if necessary, 
with the bloodhounds on his track. The scum 
of Europe and the mudsills of Yankeedom 
shall ' never be permitted to advance a step 
3* 



30 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

south of 36° 30'. South of that latitude is 
ours — westward to the Pacific. With my heart 
of hearts I hate a Yankee, and I will make my 
children swear eternal hatred to the whole 
Yankee race. A mongrel breed — Irish, Dutch, 
Puritans, Jews, free niggers, &c. — they scarce 
deserve the notice of the descendants of the 
Huguenots, the old Castilians, and the Cava- 
liers. Cursed be the day when the South con- 
sented to this iniquitous league — the Federal 
Union — which has loner dimmed her nascent 
glory. 

In battle, one southron is equivalent to ten 
northern hirelings; but I regard it a waste of 
time to speak of Yankees — they deserve not 
our attention. It matters not to us what they 
think of secession, and we would not trespass 
upon your time and patience, were it not for 
the tame, tory submissionists with which our 
country is cursed. A fearful retribution is 
in waiting for the whole crew, if the war 
which they predict, should come. Were they 
then to advocate the same views, I would not 
give a fourpence for their lives. We would 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 31 

hang them quicker than old Heath would hang 
a tory. Our Revolutionary fathers set us a 
good example in their dealings with the tories. 
They sent them to the shades infernal from the 
branches of the nearest tree. The North has 
sent teachers and preachers amongst us, who 
have insidiously infused the leaven of Abo- 
litionism into the minds of their students and 
parishioners ; and this submissionist policy is a 
lower development of the doctrine of "Wendell 
Philips, Gerritt Smith, Horace Greely, and 
others of that ilk. "We have a genial clime, a 
soil of uncommon fertility. "We have free 
institutions, freedom for the white man, bond- 
age for the black man, as nature and nature's 
God designed. "We have fair women and brave 
men. The lines have truly fallen to us in 
pleasant places. W^e have indeed a goodly 
heritage. The only evil we can complain of is 
our bondage to the Yankees through the Fede- 
ral Union. Let us burst these shackles from 
our limbs, and we will be free indeed. 

Let all who desire complete and eternal 
emancipation from Yankee thraldom, come to 



32 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

the polls on the day of December, pre- 
pared not to vote the cowardly submissionist 
ticket, but to vote the secession ticket; and 
their children, and their children's children, 
will owe them a debt of gratitude which they 
can never repay. The day of our separation 
and vindication of States' rights, will be the 
happiest day of our lives. Yankee domination 
will have ceased for ever, and the haughty 
southron will spurn them from all association, 
both governmental and social. So mote it be! 

This address was received with great eclat. 

On the next Sabbath after this meeting, I 
preached in the Poplar Creek Presbyterian 
church, in Choctaw county, from Komans 
xiii. 1: "Let every soul be subject unto the 
higher powers. For there is no power but of 
God: the powers that be, are ordained of God." 

Previous to the sermon a prayer was offered, 
of which the following is the conclusion: 

Almighty God — We would present our 
country, the United States of America, before 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 33 

thee. When our political horizon is overcast 
with clouds and darkness, when the strong- 
hearted are becoming fearful for the perma- 
nence of our free institutions, and the pros- 
perity, yea, the very existence of our great 
Kepublic, we pray thee, O God, when flesh and 
heart fail, when no human arm is able to save 
us from the fearful vortex of disunion and 
revolution, that thou wouldst interpose and 
save us. We confess our national sins, for we 
have, as a nation, sinned grievously. We have 
been highly favoured, we have been greatly 
prospered, and have taken our place amongst 
the leading powers of the earth. A gospel- 
enlightened nation, our sins are therefore more 
heinous in thy sight. They are sins of deep 
ingratitude and presumption. We confess that 
drunkenness has abounded amongst all classes 
of our citizens. Kulers and ruled have been 
alike guilty; and because of its wide-spreading 
prevalence, and because our legislators have 
enacted no sufficient laws for its suppression, it 
is a national sin. Profanity abounds amongst 
us ; Sabbath-breaking is rife ; and we have ele- 



t 



34 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

vated unworthy men to nigh positions of # hoh- 
our and trust. We are not, as a people, free 
from the crime of tyranny and oppression. For 
these great and aggravated offences, we pray 
thee to give us repentance and godly sorrow, 
and then, O God, avert the threatened and 
imminent judgments which impend over our 
beloved country. Teach our Senators wisdom. 
Grant them that wisdom which is able to make 
them wise unto salvation ; and grant also that 
wisdom which is profitable to direct, so that 
they may steer the ship of State safely through 
the troubled waters which seem ready to engulf 
it on every side. Lord, hear us, and answer in 
mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen and Amen! 

The following is a synopsis of my sermon : 

Israel had been greatly favoured as a nation. 
No weapon formed against them prospered, so 
long as they loved and served the Lord their 
God. They were blessed in their basket and 
their store. They were set on high above all 
the nations of the earth. * * * * 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 85 

When all Israel assembled, ostensibly to make 
KeboJ)oam king, they were ripe for rebellion. 
Jeroboam and other wicked men had fomented 
and cherished, the sparks of treason, till, on this 
occasion, it broke out into the flame of open 
rebellion. The severity of Solomon's rule was 
the pretext, but it was only a pretext, for dur- 
ing his reign the nation prospered, grew rich 
and powerful. Jeroboam wished a disruption 
of the kingdom, that he might bear rule ; and 
although God permitted it as a punishment for 
Israel's idolatry, yet he frowned upon the 
wicked men who were instrumental in brino-ino- 

o o 

this great evil upon his chosen people. 

The loyal division took the name of Judah, 
though composed of the two tribes, Judah and 
Benjamin. The revolted ten tribes took the 
name of their leading tribe, Ephraim. Eph- 
raim continued to wax weaker and weaker. 
Filled with -envy against Judah, they often 
warred against that loyal kingdom, until they 
themselves were greatly reduced. At last, after 
various vicissitudes, the ten tribes were carried 
away, and scattered and lost. We often hear 



36 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

of the lost ten tribes. What became of them 
is a mystery. Their secession ended in their 
being blotted out .of existence, or lost amidst 
the heathen. God alone knows what did 
become of them. They resisted the powers 
that be — the ordinance of God — and received 
to themselves damnation and annihilation. 

As God dealt with Israel, so will he deal 
with us. If we are exalted by righteousness, 
we will prosper ; if we, as the ten tribes, resist 
the ordinance of God, we will perish. At 
this time, many are advocating the course of 
the ten tribes. Secession is a word of frequent 
occurrence. It is openly advocated by many. 
Nullification and rebellion, secession and trea- 
son, are convertible terms, and no good citizen 
will mention them with approval. Secession 
is resisting the powers that be, and therefore it 
is a violation of God's command. Where do 
we obtain the right of secession ? Clearly not 
from the word of God, which enjoins obedience 
to all that are in authority, to whom we must 
be subject, not only for wrath, but also for 
conscience' sake. The following scriptural 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION". 37 

arsrument for secession is often used. 1 Tim. vi. 
1 — 5. In these verses Paul was addressing 
believing servants, and commanding them to 
absent themselves from the teaching of those 
who taught not the doctrine which is according 
to godliness. In a former epistle he had 
commanded Christians not to keep company 
with the incestuous person who had his father's 
wife. He directed that they should not keep 
company with any man who was called a 
brother, if he were a fornicator, or covetous, or 
an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an 
extortioner; with such a one no not to eat; 
but he expressly declares that he does not 
allude to those who belong to the above classes 
that have made no profession of religion. He 
does not judge them that are without, for them 
that are without, God judgeth. He afterwards 
exhorts that the church confirm their love 
toward the incestuous person as he had repent- 
ed of his wickedness. This direction of the 
Apostle to believers to withdraw from a 
brother who walked disorderly, till he had 
manifested proper repentance ; and his exhorta- 
'4 



38 THE IRON FURNACE: OR 



tion to believing servants to absent themselves 
from the teachings of errorists, cannot logically 
be construed as a scriptural argument in favour 
of secession. Were the President of the United 
States an unbeliever, a profane swearer, a Sab- 
bath-breaker, or a drunkard, this fact would 
not, per se, give us the right to secede or rebel 
against the government. 

There is no provision made in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States for secession. The 
wisest statesmen, who made politics their study, 
regarded secession as a political heresy, dan- 
gerous in its tendencies, and destructive of all 
government in its practical application. Mis- 
sissippi, purchased from France with United 
States gold, fostered by the nurturing care, and 
made prosperous by the wise administration of 
the general government, proposes to secede. 
Her political status would then be anomalous. 
Would her territory revert to France? Does 
she propose to refund the purchase-money? 
Would she become a territory under the juris- 
diction of the United States Congress ? 

Henry Clay, the great statesman, Daniel Web- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 39 

ster, the expounder of the Constitution, Gene- 
ral Jackson, George Washington, and a mighty 
host, whose names would fill a volume, regarded 
secession as treason. One of our smallest 
States, which swarmed with tories in the Revo- 
lution, whose descendants still live, invented 
the doctrine of nullification, the first treason- 
able step, which soon culminated in the advo- 
cacy of secession. Why should we secede, and 
thus destroy the best, the freest, and most pros- 
perous government on the face of the earth? 
the government which our patriot fathers 
fought and bled to secure. What has Missis- 
sippi lost by the Union? I have resided seven 
years in this State, and have an extensive per- 
sonal acquaintance, and yet I know not a single 
individual who has lost a slave through north- 
ern influence. I have, it is true, known of 
some ten slaves who have run away, and have 
not been found. They may have been aided 
in their escape to Canada by northern and 
southern citizens, for there are many in the 
South who have given aid and comfort to the 
fugitive; but the probability is that they 



40 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 

perished in the swamps, or were destroyed by 
the bloodhounds. 

The complaint is made that the North 
regards slavery as a moral, social, and political 
evil, and that many of them denounce, in no 
measured terms, both slavery and slaveholders. 
To be thus denounced is regarded as a great 
grievance. Secession would not remedy this 
evil. In order to cure it effectually, we must 
seize and gag all who thus denounce our pecu- 
liar institution. We must also muzzle their 
press. As this is impracticable, it would be 
well to come to this conclusion: — If we are 
verily guilty of the evils charged upon us, let 
us set about rectifying those evils; if not, the 
denunciations of slanderers should not affect us 
so deeply. If our northern brethren are honest 
in their convictions of the sin of slavery, as no 
doubt many of them are, let us listen to their 
arguments without the dire hostility so fre- 
quently manifested. They take the position 
that slavery is opposed to the inalienable rights 
of the human race ; that it originated in piracy 
and robbery; that manifold cruelties and bar- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 41 

barities are inflicted upon the defenceless 
slaves; that they are debarred from intellec- 
tual culture by State laws, which send to 
the penitentiary those who are guilty of in- 
structing them; that they are put upon the 
block and sold; parent and child, husband 
and wife being separated, so that they never 
again see each other's face in the flesh; that 
the law of chastity cannot be observed, as 
there are no laws punishing rape on the 
person of a female slave; that when they 
escape from the threatened cat-o' -nine -tails, 
or overseer's whip, they are hunted down by 
bloodhounds, a^id bloodier men; that often 
they are half-starved and half-clad, and are 
furnished with mere hovels to live in; that 
they are often murdered by cruel overseers, 
who whip them to death, or overtask them, 
until disease is induced, which results in death ; 
that masters practically ignore the marriage 
relation among slaves, inasmuch as they fre- 
quently separate husband and wife, by sale or 
removal; that they discourage the formation 
of that relation, preferring that the ofl'spring of 
4* 



42 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

their female slaves should be illegitimate, from 
the mistaken notion that it would be more 
numerous. They charge, also, that slavery 
induces in the masters, pride, arrogance, 
tyranny, laziness, profligacy, and every form 
of vice. 

The South takes the position, that if slavery 
is sinful, the North is not responsible for that 
sin; that it is a State institution, and that to 
interfere with slavery in the States in any 
way, even by censure, is a violation of the 
rights of the States. The language of our 
politicians is, Upon us and our children rest 
the evil ! We are willing to take the respon- 
sibility, and to risk the penalty! You will 
find evil and misery enough in the North 
to excite your philanthropy, and employ 
your beneficence. You have purchased our 
cotton; you have used our sugar; you have 
eaten our rice; you have smoked and chewed 
our tobacco — all of which are the products of 
slave-labour. You have grown rich by traffic 
in these articles; you have monopolized the 
carrying trade, and borne our slave-produced 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 43 

products to your shores. Your northern ships, 
manned by northern men, brought from Africa 
the greater part of the slaves which came to 
our continent, and they are still smuggling 
them in. When, finding slavery unprofitable, 
the northern States passed laws for gradual 
emancipation, but few obtained their freedom, 
the majority of them being shipped South and 
sold, so that but few, comparatively, were 
manumitted. If the slave trade and slavery 
are great sins, the North is particeps criminis, 
and has been from the beginning. 

These bitter accusations are hurled back and 
forth through the newspapers ; and in Congress, 
crimination and recrimination occur every day 
of the session. Instead of endeavouring to 
calm the troubled waters, politicians are striv- 
ing to render them turbid and boisterous. Sec- 
tional bitterness and animosity prevail to a 
fearful extent ; but secession is not the proper 
remedy. To cure one evil by perpetrating a 
greater, renders a double cure necessary. In 
order to cure a disease, the cause should be 
known, that we may treat it intelligently, and 



44 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

apply a proper remedy. Having observed, 
during the last eleven years, that sectional 
strife and bitterness were increasing with fear- 
ful rapidity, I have endeavoured to stem the 
torrent, so far as it was possible for individual 
effort to do so. I deem it the imperative duty 
of all patriots, of all Christians, to throw oil 
upon the troubled waters, and thus save the 
ship of State from wreck among the vertiginous 
billows. 

Most of our politicians are demagogues. 
They care not for the people, so that they 
accomplish their own selfish and ambitious 
schemes. Give them power, give them money, 
and they are satisfied. Deprive them of these, 
and they are ready to sacrifice the best interests 
of the nation to secure them. They excite 
sectional animosity and party strife, and are 
willing to kindle the flames of civil war to 
accomplish their unhallowed purposes. They 
tell ns that there is a conflict of interest 
between the free and slave States, and endea- 
vour to precipitate a revolution, that they may 
be leaders, and obtain positions of trust and 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 45 

profit in the new government which they hope 
to establish. The people would be dupes 
indeed to abet these wicked demagogues in 
their nefarious designs. Let us not break 
God's command, by resisting the ordinance of 
God — -the powers that be. I am not discussing 
the right of revolution, which I deem a sacred 
right. When human rights are invaded, when 
life is endangered, when liberty is taken away, 
when we are not left free to pursue our own 
happiness in our own chosen way — so far as 
we do not trespass upon the rights of others — 
we have a right, and it becomes our imperative 
duty to resist to the bitter end, the tyranny 
which would deprive us and our children of 
our inalienable rights. Our lives are secure; 
we have freedom to worship God. Our liberty 
is sacred; we may pursue happiness to our 
hearts' content. We do not even charge upon 
the general Government that it has infringed 
these rights. Whose life has been endangered, 
or who has lost his liberty by the action of the 
Government ? If that man lives, in all this fair 
domain of ours, he has the right to complain. 



46 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

But neither you nor I have ever heard of or 
seen the individual who has thus suffered. We 
have therefore clearly no right of revolution. 

Treason is no light offence. God, who rules 
the nations, and who has established govern- 
ments, will punish severely those who attempt 
to overthrow them. Damnation is stated to be 
the punishment which those who resist the 
powers that be, will suffer. Who wishes to 
endure it? I hope none of my charge will 
incur this penalty by the perpetration of trea- 
son. You yourselves can bear me witness that 
I have not heretofore introduced political issues 
into the pulpit, but at this time I could not 
acquit my conscience were I not to warn you 
against the great sin some of you, I fear, are 
ready to commit. 

Were I to discuss the policy of a high or 
low tariff, or descant upon the various merits 
attached to one or another form of banking, 
I should be justly obnoxious to censure. Poli- 
tics and religion, however, are not always 
separate. When the political issue is made, 
shall we, or shall we not, grant license to sell 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 47 

intoxicating liquors as a beverage? the min- 
ister's duty is plain; he must urge his people 
to use their influence against granting any 
such license. The minister must enforce every 
moral and religious obligation, and point out the 
path of truth and duty, even though the princi- 
ples he advocates are by statesmen introduced 
into the arena of political strife, and made issues 
by the great parties of the day. I see the 
sword coming, and would be derelict in duty 
not to give you faithful warning. I must 
reveal the whole counsel of God. I have a 
message from God unto you, which I must 
deliver, whether you will hear, or whether you 
will forbear. If the sword come, and you 
perish, I shall then be guiltless of your blood. 
As to the great question at issue, my honest 
conviction is (and I think I have the Spirit of 
God,) that you should with your whole heart, 
and soul, and mind, and strength, oppose 
secession. You should talk against it, you 
should write against it, you should vote against 
it, and, if need be, you should fight against it. 
I have now declared what I believe to be your 



48 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

high duty in this emergency. Do not destroy 
the government which has so long protected 
you, and which has never in a single instance 
oppressed you. Pull not down the fair fabric 
which our patriot fathers reared at vast ex- 
pense of blood and treasure. Do not, like the 
blind Samson, pull down the pillars of our 
glorious edifice, and cause death, desolation, 
and ruin. Perish the hand that would thus 
destroy the source of all our political pros- 
perity and happiness. Let the parricide who 
attempts it receive the just retribution which a 
loyal people demand, even his execution on a 
gallows high as Haman's. Let us also set 
about rectifying the causes which threaten the 
overthrow of our government. As we are 
proud, let us pray for the grace of humility. 
As a State, and as individuals, we too lightly 
regard its most solemn obligations; let us, 
therefore, pray for the grace of repentance and 
godly sorrow, and hereafter in this respect sin 
no more. As many transgressions have been 
committed by us, let the time past of our lives 
suffice us to have wrought the will of the flesh, 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 49 

and now let us break off our sins by righteous- 
ness, and our transgressions by turning unto 
the Lord, and be will avert bis threatened 
judgments, and save us from dissolution, an- 
archy, and desolation. 

If our souls are filled with hatred against 
the people of any section of our common coun- 
try, let us ask from the Great Giver the grace 
of charity, which suffereth long and is kind, 
which envieth not, which vaunteth not itself, 
is not puffed up, does not behave itself 
unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily 
provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in 
iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all 
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
endureth all things, and which never faileth; 
then shall we be in a suitable frame for an ami- 
cable adjustment of every difficulty; oil will 
soon be thrown upon the troubled waters, and 
peace, harmony, and prosperity would ever 
attend us; and our children, and our children's 
children will rejoice in the possession of a bene- 
ficent and stable government, securing to them 
all the natural and inalienable rights of man. 



50 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



CHAPTEE II. 

VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL. 

The election of Delegates to determine the status of Missis- 
sippi — The Vigilance Committee — Description of its mem- 
bers — Charges — Phonography — No formal verdict — Dan- 
ger of Assassination — Passports — Escape to Rienzi — 
Union sentiment — The Conscript Law — Summons to at- 
tend Court-Martial — Evacuation of Corinth — Destruction 
of Cotton — Suffering poor — Relieved by General Halleck. 

Soon after this sermon was preached, the 
election was held. Approaching the polls, I 
asked for a Union ticket, and was informed that 
none had been printed, and that it would be 
advisable to vote the secession ticket. I thought 
otherwise, and going to a desk, wrote out a 
Union ticket, and voted it amidst the frowns 
and suppressed murmurs of the judges and by- 
standers, and, as the result proved, I had the 
honour of depositing the only vote in favour 
of the Union which was polled in that precinct. 
I knew of many who were in favour of the 
Union, who were intimidated by threats, and 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 51 

by the odium attending it from voting at all. 
A majority of secession candidates were elected. 
The convention assembled, and on the 9th of 
January, 1861, Mississippi had the unenviable 
reputation of being the first to follow her twin 
sister, South Carolina, into the maelstrom of 
secession and treason. Being the only States 
in which the slaves were more numerous than 
the whites, it became them to lead the van in 
the slave-holders' rebellion. Before the 4th of 
March, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana 
and Texas had followed in the wake, and were 
engulfed in the whirlpool of secession. 
. It was now dangerous to utter a word in 
favour of the Union. Many suspected of Union 
sentiments were lynched. An old gentleman 
in Winston county was arrested for an act 
committed twenty years before, which was 
construed as a proof of his abolition proclivi- 
ties. The old gentleman had several daughters, 
and his mother-in-law had given him a negro 
girl. Observing that his daughters were be- 
coming lazy, and were imposing all the labour 
upon the slave, he sent her* back to the donor, 



52 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

with a statement of the cause for returning 
her. This was now the ground of his arrest, 
but escaping from their clutches, a precipitate 
flight alone saved his life. 

Self-constituted vigilance committees sprang 
up all over the country, . and a reign of terror 
began; all who had been Union men, and who 
had not given in their adhesion to the new 
order of things by some public proclamation, 
were supposed to be disaffected. The so-called 
Confederate States, the new power, organized 
for the avowed purpose of extending and per- 
petuating African slavery, was now in full 
blast. These soi-disant vigilance committees 
professed to carry out the will of Jeff. Davis. 
All who were considered disaffected were re- 
garded as being tinctured with abolitionism. 
My opposition to the disruption of the Union 
being notorious, I was summoned to appear 
before one of these august tribunals to answer 
the charge of being an abolitionist. My wife was 
very much alarmed, knowing that were I found 
guilty of the charge, there was no hope for 
mercy. Flight was impossible, and I deemed 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 53 

it the safest plan to appear before the commit- 
tee. I found it to consist of twelve persons, 
five of whom I knew, viz., Parson Locke, 
Armstrong, Cartledge, Simpson, and Wilbanks. 
Parson Locke, the chief speaker, or rather the 
inquisitor-general, was a Methodist minister, 
though he had fallen into disrepute among 
his brethren, and was engaged in a tedious 
strife with the church which he left in Holmes 
county. The parson was a real ISTimrod. He 
boasted that in five months he had killed forty- 
eight raccoons, two hundred squirrels, and ten 
deer; he had followed the bloodhounds, and 
assisted in the capture of twelve runaway 
negroes. W. H. Simpson was a ruling elder 
in my church. Wilbanks was a clever sort 
of old gentleman, who had little to say in the 
matter. Armstrong was a monocular Hard- 
shell-Baptist. Cartledge was an illiterate, con- 
ceited individual. The rest were a motley crew, 
not one of whom, I feel confident, knew a letter 
in the alphabet. The committee assembled in 
an old carriage-shop. Parson Locke acted as 
chairman, and conducted the trial, as follows. 
5* 



5-i THE IKON FURNACE; OR 



" Parson Aughey, you have been reported to 
us as holding abolition sentiments, and as being 
disloyal to the Confederate States." 

"Who reported me, and where are your 
witnesses ?" 

" Any one has a right to report; and it is 
optional whether he confronts the accused or 
not. The proceedings of vigilance committees 
are somewhat informal." 

" Proceed, then, with the trial, in your own 
way." 

"We propose to ask you a few questions, 
and in your answers you may defend yourself, 
or admit your guilt. In the first place, did you 
ever say that you did not believe that God 
ordained the institution of slavery?" 

" I believe that God did not ordain the insti- 
tution of slavery." 

"Did not God command the Israelites to buy 
slaves from the Canaanitish nations, and to 
hold them as their property for ever?" 

"The Canaanites had filled their cup of 
iniquity to overflowing, and God commanded 
the Israelites to exterminate them; this, in 



SLAVEKY AND SECESSION. " DO 

violation of God's command, they failed to do. 
God afterwards permitted the Hebrews to 
reduce them to a state of servitude; but the 
punishment visited upon those seven wicked 
nations by the command of God, does not 
justify war or the slave-trade." 

"Did you say that you were opposed to the 
slavery which existed in the time of Christ?" 

"I did, because the system of slavery pre- 
vailing in Christ's day was cruel in the 
extreme; it conferred the power of life and 
death upon the master, and was attended with 
innumerable evils. The slave had the same 
complexion as his master ; and by changing his 
servile garb for the citizen dress, he could not 
be recognised as a slave. You yourself pro- 
fess to be opposed to white slavery." 

"Did you state that you believed Paul, when 
he sent Onesimus back to Philemon, had no 
idea that he would be regarded as a slave, and 
treated as such after his return?" 

"I did. My proof is in Philemon, verses 15 
and 16, where the apostle asks that Onesimus 



56 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 



be received, not as a servant, but as a brother 
beloved ?" 

"Did you tell Mr. Creath that you knew 
some negroes who were better, in every respect, 
than some white men?" 

"I said that I knew some negroes who were 
better classical scholars than any white men I 
had as yet met with in Choctaw county, and 
that I had known some who were pre-eminent 
for virtue and holiness. As to natural rights, 
I made no comparison ; nor did I say anything 
about superiority or inferiority of race. I also 
stated my belief in the unity of the races." 

"Have you any abolition works in your 
library, and a poem in your scrap-book, en- 
titled ' The Fugitive Slave,' with this couplet as 
a refrain, 

'The hounds are baying on my track; 
Christian, will you send me back?' " 

"I have not Mrs. Stowe's nor Helper's work; 
they are contraband in this region, and I could 
not get them if I wished. I have many works 
in my library containing sentiments adverse to 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 57 

tlie institution of slavery. All the works in 
common use amongst us, on law, physic, and 
divinity, all the text-books in our schools — in 
a word, all the works on every subject read 
and studied by us, were, almost without excep- 
tion, written by men opposed to the peculiar 
institution. I am not alone in this matter." 

" Parson, I saw Cowper's works in your 
library, and Cowper says: 

1 1 would not have a slave to fan me when I sleep, 
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.'" 

"You have Wesley's writings, and Wesley 
says that 'Human slavery is the sum of all 
villany.' You have a work which has this 
couplet : 

'Two deep, dark stains,. mar all our country's bliss: 
Foul slavery one, and one, loathed drunkenness.' 

You have the work of an English writer of 
high repute, who says, 'Forty years ago, some 
in England doubted whether slavery were a 
sin, and regarded adultery as a venial offence; 
but behold the progress of truth! Who now 



58 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



doubts that he who enslaves his fellow-man is 
guilty of a fearful crime, and that he who 
violates the seventh commandment is a great 
sinner in the sight of God?'" 

"You are known to be an adept in Phono- 
graphy, and you are reported to be a corres- 
pondent of an abolition Phonographic journal." 
"I understand the science of Phonography, 
and I am a correspondent of a Phonographic 
journal, but the journal eschews politics." 

Another member of the committee then in- 
terrogated me. 

" Parson Aughey, what is Funnyography ? 
" Phonography, sir, is a system of writing by 
means of a philosophic alphabet, composed of 
the simplest geometrical signs, in which one 
mark is used to represent one and invariably 
the same sound." 

"Kin you talk Funnyography? and where 
does them folks live what talks it?" 

"Yes, sir, I converse fluently in Phono- 
graphy, and those who speak the language live 
in Columbia." 

"In theDestrict?" 






SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 59 

" No, sir, in the poetical Columbia." 

I was next interrogated by another member 
of the committee. 

"Parson Aughey, is Phonography a Aboli- 
tion fixin?" 

" No, sir ; Phonography, abstractly considered, 
has no political complexion ; it may be used to 
promote either side of any question, sacred or 
profane, mental, moral, physical, or political." 

"Well, you ought to mite and talk plain 
English, what common folks can understand, 
or we'll have to say of you, what Agrippa 
said of Paul, 'Much learning hath made thee 
mad.' Suppose you was to preach in Phono- 
graphy, who'd understand it?— who'd know 
what was piped or harped? I'll bet high 
some Yankee invented it to spread his abolition 
notions underhandedly. I, for one, would be 
in favour of makin' the parson promise to write 
and talk no more in Phonography. I'll bet 
Phonography is agin slavery, tho' I never 
hearn tell of it before. I'm asrin all secret 
societies. I'm agin the Odd-fellers, Free-ma- 



60 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 

sons, Sons of Temperance, Good Templars and 
Phonography. I want to know what's writ 
and what's talked. Yon can't throw dnst in 
my eyes. Phonography, from what I've fonnd 
ont abont it to-day, is agin the Confederate 
States, and we onght to be agin it." 

Parson Locke then resumed: 
"I must stop this digression. Parson 
Aughey, are yon in favonr of the South?" 

"I am in favour of the South, and have 
always endeavoured to promote the best inter- 
ests of the South. However, I never deemed it 
for the best interests of the South to secede. I 
talked against secession, and voted against 
secession, because I thought that the best inter- 
ests of the South wo aid be put in jeopardy by 
the secession of the Southern States. I was 
honest in my convictions, and acted according- 
ly. Could the sacrifice of* my life have stayed 
the swelling tide of secession, it would gladly 
have been made." 

"It is said that you have never prayed for 
the Southern Confederacy." 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 61 

"I have prayed for the whole world, though 
it is true that I have never named the Confede- 
rate States in prayer." 

" You may retire." 

After I had retired, the committee held a 
long consultation. My answers were not satis- 
factory. I never learned all that transpired. 
They brought in no formal verdict. The 
majority considered me a dangerous man, but 
feared to take my life, as they were, with one 
exception, adherents of other denominations, 
and they knew that my people were devotedly 
attached to me before the secession movement. 
Some of the secessionists swore that they would 
go to my house and murder me, when they 
learned that the committee had not hanged me. 
My friends provided me secretly with arms, 
and I determined to defend myself to the last. 
I slept with a double-barrelled shot-gun at my 
head, and was prepared to defend myself 
against a dozen at least. 

Learning that I was not acceptable to many 
of the members of my church, whilst my life 
6 



62 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

was in continual jeopardy, and my family in a 
state of constant alarm, I abandoned my field of 
labour, and sought for safety in a more con- 
genial clime. I intended to go North. Jeff. 
Davis and his Congress had granted permission 
to all who so desired, to leave the South. Several 
Union men of my acquaintance applied for pass- 
ports, but were refused. The proclamation to 
grant permits was an act of perfidy ; all those, 
so far as I am informed, who made application 
for them, were refused. The design in thus act- 
ing was to get Union men to declare themselves 
as such, and afterwards to punish them for their 
sentiments by forcing them into the army, con- 
fining them in prison, shooting them, or lynch- 
ing them by mob violence. Finding that were 
I to demand a passport to go north, I would 
be placed on the proscribed list, and my life 
endangered still more, I declared my intention 
of going back to Tishomingo county, in which 
I owned property, and which was the home of 
many of my relatives. I knew that I would 
be safer there, for this county had elected 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 63 

Union delegates by a majority of over fourteen 
hundred, and a strong Union sentiment had 
always prevailed. 

On my arrival in Tishomingo, I found that 
the great heart of the county still beat true to 
the music of the Union. Being thrown out of 
employment I deemed it my duty, in every pos- 
sible way, to sustain the Union cause and the 
enforcement of the laws. It was impossible to 
go north. Union sentiments could be expressed 
with safety in many localities. Corinth, Iuka, 
and Rienzi had, from the commencement of the 
war, been camps of instruction for the training 
of Confederate soldiers. These three towns in 
the county being thus occupied, Union men 
found it necessary to be more cautious, as the 
cavalry frequently made raids through the coun- 
ty, arresting and maltreating those suspected of 
disaffection. After the reduction of Forts 
Henry and Donelson, and the surrender of 
Nashville, the Confederates made the Memphis 
and Charleston railroad the base of their opera- 
tions, their armies extending from Memphis to 
Chattanooga. Soon, however, they were all 



64 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

concentrated at Corinth, a town in Tishomingo 
county, at the junction of the Memphis and 
Charleston railroad with the Mobile and Ohio. 
After the battle of Shiloh, which was fought 
on the 6th and 7th of April, the Federal troops 
held their advance at Farmington, four miles 
from Corinth, while the Confederates occupied 
Corinth, their rear guard holding Bienzi, twelve 
miles south, on the Mobile and Ohio railroad. 
Thus there were two vast armies encamped 
in Tishomingo county. Being within the Con- 
federate lines, I, in common with many others, 
found it difficult to evade the conscript law. 
Knowing that in a multitude of counsellors 
there is wisdom, we held secret meetings, in 
order to devise the best method of resisting the 
law. We met at night, and had our counter- 
signs to prevent detection. Often our wives, 
sisters, and daughters met with us. Our meet- 
ing-place was some ravine, or secluded glen, as 
far as possible from the haunts of the secession- 
ists; all were armed; even the ladies had re- 
volvers, and could use them too. The crime of 
treason we were resolved not to commit. Our 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. t)^ 

counsels were somewhat divided, some advo- 
cating, as a matter of policy, the propriety of 
attending the militia musters, others opposing 
it for conscience 1 sake, and for the purpose of 
avoiding every appearance of evil. Many who 
would not muster as conscripts, resolved to 
escape to the Federal lines; and making the 
attempt two or three at a time, succeeded in 
crossing the Tennessee river, and reaching the 
Union army, enlisted under the old flag, and 
have since done good service as patriot war- 
riors. Some who were willing to muster as 
conscripts, were impressed into the Confederate 
service, and I know not whether they ever 
found an opportunity to desert. Others, my- 
self among the number, were saved by the 
timely arrival of the Federal troops, and the 
occupation of the county by them, after Beau- 
regard's evacuation of Corinth. I had received 
three citations to attend muster, but disregard- 
ing them, I was summoned to attend a court- 
martial on the first day of June, at the house of 
Mr. Jim Mock. The following is a copy of the 
citation. 
6* 



6S THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

Ma the 22d. 1862 

Parson Awhay, You havent tended nun of 
our mustters as a konskrip. Now you is her 
bi sumenzd to attend a kort marshal on Jun 
the fust at Jim Mock. 

When I received the summons, I resolved to 
attempt reaching the Union lines at Farming- 
ton. Two of my friends, who had received a 
similar summons, expected to accompany me. 
On the 29th of May, I left for Kienzi, where 
my two friends were to meet me. I had not 
been many hours in Eienzi when it became 
evident that the Confederates were evacuating 
Corinth. On the 1st of June, (the day the 
court-martial was to convene,) I had the plea- 
sure of once more beholding the star-spangled 
banner as it was borne in front of General 
Granger's command, which led the van of the 
pursuing army. Had I remained and attended 
the court-martial, I would have been forced 
into the army. Were I then to declare that I 
would not take up arms against the United 
States, I would have been shot, as many 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 67 

have been, for their refusal thus to act. 
General Rosecrans, on his arrival, made his 
head-quarters at my brother's house, where I 
had the pleasure of forming his acquaintance, 
together with that of Generals Smith, Granger, 
and Pope. As this county was now occupied 
by the Federal army, I returned to my father- 
in-law's, within five miles of which place the 
court martial had been ordered to convene, 
considering myself comparatively safe. I 
learned that the court-martial never met, 
as Colonel Elliott, in his successful raid upon 
Boonville, had passed Jim Mock's, scaring him 
to such a degree, that he did not venture to 
sleep in his house for two weeks. The Union 
cavalry scoured the country in all directions, 
daily, and we were rejoicing at the prospect 
of continuous safety, and freedom from out- 
rage. 

The Rebels, during their retreat, had burned 
all the cotton which was accessible to their 
cavalry, on their route. At night, the flames 
of the burning cotton lighted up the horizon ' 
for miles around. These baleful pyres, with 



68 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

their lurid glare, bore sad testimony to the 
horrors of war. In this wanton destruction of 
the great southern staple, many poor families 
lost their whole staff of bread, and starvation 
stared them in the face. Many would have 
perished, had it not been for the liberal contri- 
butions of the North; for, learning the suffer- 
ings of the poor of the South, whose whole 
labour had been destroyed by pretended friends, 
they sent provisions and money, and thus 
many who were left in utter destitution, were 
saved by this timely succor. I have heard 
the rejoicings of the poor, who, abandoned by 
their supposed friends, were saved, with their 
"children, from death, by the beneficence of 
those whom they had been taught to regard as 
enemies the most bitter, implacable, unmerciful, 
and persistent. Their prayer may well be, 
Save us from our friends, whose tender mercies 
are cruel! I have never known a man to burn 
his own cotton, but I have heard their bitter 
anathemas hurled against those who thus 
robbed them, and their denunciations were 
loud and deep against the government which 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 69 

authorized such cruelty. It is true that those 
who thus lose their cotton, if secessionists, 
receive a " promise to pay/' which all regard 
as not worth the paper on which it is written. 
Ere pay-day, those who are dependent on their 
cotton for the necessaries of life, would have 
passed the bourne whence no traveller returns, 
"lis like the Confederate bonds — at , first they 
were made payable two years after date, and 
printed upon paper which would be worn out 
entirely in six months, and would have become 
illegible in half that time. The succeeding 
issues were made payable six months after the 
ratification of a treaty of peace between the 
United States and the Confederate States. 
Though not a prophet, nor a prophet's son, I 
venture the prediction that those bonds will 
never be due. The war of elements, the wreck 
of matter, and the crush of worlds, announcing 
the end of all things, will be heard sooner. 



70 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



CHAPTER III. 

ARREST, ESCAPE, AND RECAPTURE. 

High price of Provisions — Holland Lindsay's Family — The 
arrest — Captain Hill — Appearance before Colonel Brad- 
fute at Fulton — Arrest of Benjamin Clarke — Bradfute's 
Insolence — General Chalmers — The clerical Spy — Gene- 
ral Pfeifer — Under guard — Priceville — General Gordon — 
Bound for Tupelo — The Prisoners entering the Dungeon — 
Captain Bruce — Lieutenant Richard Malone — Prison Fare 
and Treatment — Menial Service — Resolve to escape — 
Plan of escape — Federal Prisoners — Co-operation of the 
Prisoners — Declaration of Independence — The Escape — • 
The Separation — Concealment — Travel on the Under- 
ground Railroad — Pursuit by Cavalry and Bloodhounds — ■ 
The Arrest — Dan Barnes, the Mail-robber — Perfidy — 
Heavily ironed — Return to Tupelo. 

At this time — May and June, 1862 — all mar- 
ketable commodities were commanding fabu- 
Ions prices ; as a lady declared, it wonld soon 
be necessary, on going to a store, to carry two 
baskets, one to hold the money, and the other 
the goods purchased. Flour was thirty dollars 
pur barrel, bacon forty cents per pound, and 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 71 

coffee one dollar per pound. Salt was nomi- 
nally one hundred dollars per sack of one hun- 
dred pounds, or one dollar per pound, but there 
was none to be obtained even at that price. 
Ladies were compelled to dispense with salt in 
their culinary operations; even the butter was 
unsalted. Cotton-cards, an article used in every 
house at the South, the ordinary price of which 
is fifty cents per pair, were selling at twenty- 
five dollars per pair, and wool-cards at fifteen 
dollars per pair, the usual price being thirty - 
ei^ht cents. All the cotton used in the manu- 
facture of home-made cloth, is carded into rolls 
upon these cotton-cards, which are brought 
from the North, there being not a single manu- 
factory of them in the South. "When the sup- 
ply on hand becomes exhausted, the southern 
home manufacture of cloth must cease, no one 
as yet having been able to suggest a substitute 
for the cotton-card. There are only three facto- 
ries in Mississippi, which must cease running as 
soon as their machinery wears out, as the most 
important parts of the machinery in those fac- 
tories are supplied from the North. The people 



72 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

arc fully a Ware of these difficulties, but they 
can devise no remedy, hence the high price of 
all articles used in the manufacture of all kinds 
of cloths. All manufactured goods were com- 
manding fabulous prices. On the occupation 
of the county by Federal troops, goods could 
be obtained at reasonable prices, but our money 
was all gone, except Confederate bonds, which 
were worthless. Planters who were beyond the 
lines of the retreating army had cotton, but 
many of them feared to sell it, as the Rebels 
professed to regard it treason to trade with the 
invaders, and threatened to execute the penalty 
in every case. As there was no penalty 
attached to the selling of cotton by one citizen 
of Mississippi to another, some of my friends 
offered to sell me their cotton for a reasonable 
price. 

I was solicited also to act as their agent in 
the purchase of commodities. I agreed to this 
risk, because of the urgent need of my friends, 
many of whom were suffering greatly for the 
indispensable necessaries of life. I thought it 
was better that one should suffer, than that the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 73 

whole people should perish. By this arrange- 
ment my Union friends would escape the punish- 
ment meted out to those who were found guilty 
of trading with the Yankees; if discovered, I 
alone would be amenable to their unjust and 
cruel law, and they would thus save their cotton, 
which was liable to be destroyed at any mo- 
ment by a dash of rebel cavalry. I now hired 
a large number of wagons to haul cotton into 
Eastport and Iuka, that I might ship it to the 
loyal States. On the 2d of June the wagons 
were to rendezvous at a certain point; there 
were a sufficient number to haul one hundred 
bales per trip. I hoped to keep them running 
for some time. 

On the first of June I rode to Mr. Holland 
Lindsay's on business. I had learned that he 
was a rabid secessionist, but supposed that no 
rebel cavalry had come so far north as his 
house since the evacuation of Corinth. Mr. 
Lindsay had gone to a neighbour's. His wife was 
weaving; she was a coarse, masculine woman, 
and withal possessed of strong prejudice against 
all whom she did not like, but especially the 
7 



74 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

Yankees. I sat down to await the arrival of 
her hnsband, and it was not long before Mrs. 
Lindsay broached the exciting topic of the clay, 
the war. She thus vented her spleen against 
the Yankees. 

"There was some Yankee calvary passed 
here last week — they asked me if there wos 
ony rebels scoutin round here lately. I jest told 
em it want none of ther bizness. Them nasty, 
good for nothin scamps callen our men rebels. 
Them nigger-stealin, triflin scoundrels. They 
runs off our niggers, and wont let us take em to 
Mexico and the other territories." 

I ventured to remark, "The Yankees are 
mean, indeed, not to let us take our negroes to 
the Territories, and not to help catch them for 
us when they run off." 

The emphatic us and our nettled her, as none 
of the Lindsays ever owned a negro, being 
classed by the southern nabobs as among the 
poor white trash; nor did I ever own a slave. 
Her husband, however, had once been sent to 
the Legislature, which led the family to ape the 
manners, and studiously copy the ultraism of 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 75 

the classes above them. Mrs. Lindsay became 
morose. I concluded to ride over and see her 
husband. 

On my way I met a member of Hill's cavalry. 
He halted me, inquired my name and business, 
which I gave. He said that, years ago, he had 
heard me preach, and that he was well ac- 
quainted with my brothers-in-law, who were 
officers in the Eebel armv. He informed me 
that his uncle, Mr. Lindsay, had gone across 
the field home, and that he himself was on his 
way there. I returned with him, but fearing 
arrest, my business was hastily attended to, and 
I at once started for my horse. By this time 
one or two other cavalry-men rode up. I 
heard Mrs. Lindsay informing her nephew that 
I was a Union man, and advising my arrest. 
When I had reached mv horse, Mr. Davis, Lind- 
say's nephew arrested me, and sent my horse to 
the stable. After, supper my horse was brought, 
and I was taken to camp. Four men were 
detached to guard me during the night. They 
ordered me to lie down on the ground and 
sleep. As it had rained during the day, and I 



76 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

had no blanket, I insisted upon going to a Mr. 
Spigener's, about fifty yards distant, to secure 
a bed. After some discussion they consented, 
the guards remaining in the room, and guard- 
ing me by turns during the night. The next 
morning I sought Captain Hill, and asked per- 
mission to return home, when the following 
colloquy ensued. 

'•'Are you a Union man?" 

"I voted the Union ticket, sir." 

"That is not a fair answer. I voted the 
Union ticket myself, and am now warring 
against the Union." 

"I have seen no good reason for changing 
my sentiments." 

"You confess, then, that you are a Union 
man?" 

"I do; I regard the union of these States as 
of paramount importance to the welfare of 
the people inhabiting them." 

" You must go to head-quarters, where you 
will be dealt with as we are accustomed to deal 
with all the abettors of an Abolition govern- 
ment." 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 77 

A heavy guard was then detached to take 
charge of me, and the company set off for 
Fulton, the county seat of Ittawamba county, 
Mississippi, distant thirty miles. After going 
about ten miles, we halted, and two men were 
detached to go forward with the prisoners, a 
Mr. Benjamin Clarke and myself. Our guards 
were Dr. Crossland, of Burnsville, Tishomingo 
county, Mississippi, and Ferdinand Woodruff. 
They were under the influence of liquor, and 
talked incessantly, cursing and insulting us, on 
every occasion, by abusive language. They 
detailed to each other a history of their licen- 
tious amours. We halted for dinner at one 
o'clock, and being out of money, they asked 
me to pay their bill, which I did, they pro- 
mising to refund the amount when they reached 
Fulton. This they forgot to do. 

On our arrival at Fulton, we were taken into 
the office of the commander of the post, 
Colonel Bradfute. My fellow-prisoner was 
examined first. Woodruff stated that they 
had played off on Mr. Clarke — calling on 
7* 



78 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

him, as lie was plowing in the field, stating 
that they were Federal soldiers. They asked 
Clarke what were his political views. He 
replied that ' he always had been a Union 
man — had voted the Union ticket, and would 
do it again, if another election were held; that 
he hated the secession principles, and would 
enlist in the Federal army as soon as he got 
his crop in such a condition that his family 
could attend to it. On hearing this statement, 
Bradfute became very angry, swearing that 
Clarke ought to be taken out and shot then, 
but that a few days' respite would make but 
little difference. Said he, addressing the 
guards, had you hung Clarke, you would 
have saved us some trouble, and have done 
your country good service. The Colonel, turn- 
ing round, glared upon me with eyes inflamed 
with passion and liquor, and thus addressed 
me: 

"Are you a Union man too?" 

"I am, sir. I have never denied it." 

"Where do you reside?" 



SLAVEKY AND SECESSION. 79 

" I consider Eienzi my home, but have been 
staying for some time at my father-in-law's, in 
the south-eastern part of Tishomingo county." 

"What is your father-in-law's name?" 

"Mr. Alexander Paden." 

"I know the old gentleman and his three 
sons. They are all in the Confederate service. 
They are brave men, and have done some hard 
fighting in our cause. How happens it that 
you look at matters in a different light from 
your relatives ?" 

"I am not guided in my ^opinions by the 
views of my friends." 

"What is your profession?" 

" I am a minister of the gospel." 

"I suppose, then, that you go to the Bible 
for your politics, and that you are a sort of 
higher-law man." 

"My Bible teaches, 'Let every soul be sub- 
ject to the higher powers, for there is no power 
but of God ; the powers that be, are ordained 
of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the 
power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and 
they that resist shall receive to themselves 



80 THE IRON FURNACE: OR 



damnation.' I have seen no reason for resist- 
ance to the government under which we have, 
as a nation, so long prospered." 

"I command you to hush, sir; you shan't 
preach treason to me, and if you get your de- 
serts you will be hung immediately. Have 
you ever been within the Federal lines?" 

" I have, sir." 

" At what points?" 

" At Rienzi and Iuka." 

" When were you at Iuka ?" 

" On last Saturday." 

" Had the Federals a large force at that place, 
and who was in command ?" 

"They have a large force, and Generals 
Thomas and Steadman are in command." 

" That is contrary to the reports of our scouts, 
who say that there are but two regiments in the 
town. I fear you are purposely trying to mis- 
lead us." 

"General Steadman has but two regiments 
in the town, but General Thomas is within 
striking distance with a large force." 

" What was your business in Iuka?" 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 81 

" I went there to pay a debt of fifty dollars 
which a widow owed, as she wished it to be 
paid in Confederate money before it became 
worthless." 

" Have you a Federal pass ?" 

"I * have none with me, but nave one at 
home." 

" How does it read ?" 

" It was given by General Nelson, and reads 
thus : ' The bearer, Rev. John H. Aughey, has 
permission to pass backward and forward 
through the lines of this division at will.' " 

" Where were you born?" • 

" I was born in New Hartford, Oneida coun- 
ty, New York." 

"Yankee born," said the Colonel, with a 
sneer; "you deserve death at the rope's-end, 
aud if I had the power I would hang all Yan- 
kees who are among us, for they are all tories, 
whatever may be their pretensions." 

"My being born north of the nigger-line, 
Colonel, if a crime worthy of death, was cer- 
tainly not my fault, but the fault of my parents. 
They did not so much as consult me in regard 



82 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



to any preference I might have concerning the 
place of my nativity." 

Woodruff, one of my guards, now informed 
the Colonel that I was a spy, and, while the 
Confederates were at Corinth, had, to his cer- 
tain knowledge, been three times at Nashville, 
carrying information. I told Woodruff that 
his statement was false, and that he knew it ; 
that I had never been at Nashville in my life. 
General Chalmers, who was present, and Colonel 
Bradfute, at the conclusion of the examination, 
spent fifteen or twenty minutes in bitterly curs- 
ing all Yankees, tories, and traitors, as they 
termed us. All the conversation of the rebel 
officers was interlarded with the most horrid 
profanity. General Chalmers, in speaking, in- 
variably called me the clerical spy. We were 
placed under guard, and sent to Brooksville, 
ten miles distant, the head-quarters of General 
Pfeifer. Immediately after our arrival, we were 
soundly berated by General Pfeifer, and then 
sent out to the camp, half a mile from the town, 
where we were placed under guard for the night, 
in a small plot of ground surrounded by a chain. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 83 

We had no supper, and no blankets to sleep 
on. Our bed was the -cold ground, our cover- 
ing the blue canopy of heaven. The next 
morning we were started, without breakfast, 
under a heavy guard, numbering fourteen 
cavalry, to Price ville, six miles west of Brooks-' 
ville. Priceville was named in honour of 
General Sterling Price, or rather the little 
village where he encamped had its name 
changed in his honour. When we reached 
Priceville we were taken to the head-quarters 
of General Jordan, and immediately brought 
into his presence. After reading the letter 
handed to him by one of the guard, he said, 
looking sternly at me, 

"You are charged with sedition." 
I asked him what sedition meant, to which 
he replied : 

" It means enough to hang you, you villan- 
ous tory I" 

He also asked me where I was born. My 
reply was, in the State of £ew York, near 
Utica, in Oneida county. 

"Then you doubly deserve death," said he. 



84 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

" As to the guilt of my nativity/' said I, " it 
is not my fault, for I could not have helped it 
if I had tried. But I glory in my native State. 
She has never done anything to disgrace her. 
She never repudiated her just debts, nor com- 
mitted any other disgraceful act." 

"Well, you ought to have staid there, or 
have gone back when Mississippi seceded." 

"Give me an opportunity, and I will go 
instanter." 

" The first going you will do, will be to go to 
hell, where, if the devil had his due, you would 
have been long ago ; and before you leave us, 
we will give you a free ticket to the shades 
infernal." 

" Thank you for your kind offer to give me 
a free pass to the infernal regions. I did not 
know before that you were the devil's ticket- 
agent. You have me in your power, and may 
destroy my life; but when you have done that, 
there is no more that you can do." 

Yery little was said to my fellow-prisoner, 
Clarke. A few curses for a traitor, tory, &c, 
was about all. We were now placed under 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 85 

guard, arid conducted to Tupelo, and after 
visiting the provost-marshal's office and the 
office of the commander of the post, whose 
names were Peden and Clare, we were com- 
mitted to the Central Military Prison. As we 
entered, Captain Bruce and Lieutenant Malone 
(two gentlemen who had been elected to those 
offices by their fellow-prisoners) received us 
with a cordial greeting. Captain Bruce thus 
addressed us : 

"Welcome, gentlemen, thrice welcome. I 
am rejoiced to see you at my hotel. We are 
now doing a land-office business, as the large 
number of my boarders, whom you see, will 
testify. We have numerous arrivals daily, 
whilst the departures are very few, giving 
evidence that all are satisfied with their treat- 
ment. The bill of fare is not very extensive. In 
these war times we must not expect the luxu- 
ries of life, but be content with the necessaries. 
It is true, we cannot furnish you with coffee, or 
molasses, or sugar, or salt, or beef, or vegeta- 
bles ; but we have something more substantial 
— we have flour, rather dark in colour, to be 
8 



86 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

sure, but people must not be squeamish. The 
boarders are required to do their own cooking, 
as they could otherwise have but little exer- 
cise; we consider it a sanitary measure, exer- 
cise being indispensable to health. We fur- 
nish the boarders, also, with meat — none of 
your lean meat, either, but fat middling, with a 
streak of lean in it. The Bible promises the 
righteous that their bread shall be given, and 
their water sure; but we go beyond the pro- 
mise, and give not only bread (or rather the 
flour to make it) and water, but also fat, strong 
meat. What room will you be pleased to 
have?" 

I replied, that as they seemed to be crowded, 
I would choose number 199. 

"Well," said the Captain, "it shall be pre- 
pared. Lieutenant Malone, have room num- 
ber 199 fitted up for the reception of these gen- 
tlemen." 

Lieutenant Malone replied, that the room 
designated would be fitted up in style for our 
reception. He asked us if we had dined. 

"No," replied Clarke; "we have not tasted 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 87 

food since yesterday at noon, when the Parson 
paid for his own dinner and the dinner of the 
guards. We asked for something to eat, but 
were as often refused, and now we are in a 
starving condition." 

"I pity you," said Malone, laying aside his 
facetious style ; " you shall have something to 
eat as soon as it can be cooked." 

He then went to some of the prisoners, and 
set them to cooking, and we were soon fur- 
nished with the best repast the poor fellows 
could supply. 

We entered the prison July 3d, 1862, at two 
o'clock, P. M. Our prison was a grocery- 
house, its dimensions about twenty-five by fifty 
feet. When we were incarcerated, there were 
about seventy prisoners in the building, whites, 
mulattoes and negroes. The prison was filthy 
in the extreme, and filled with vermin; even 
our food was infested with them. No brooms 
were furnished us, and we could not sweep 
the floor. No beds were furnished, and we 
were compelled to lie upon the floor, with no 



88 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

covering, and nothing but the hard planks 
beneath us. 

Several times a day officers would come in 
and order a specified number of men to go and 
work, under a strong guard. "We were made 
to clean the streets, roll barrels, and clean the 
hospital ; but our own prison we were not per- 
mitted to clean. Every kind of drudgery, and 
the most menial services, were imposed upon 
us. 

The crimes charged upon the prisoners were 
desertion, trading with the Yankees, adhesion 
to the United States government or Unionism, 
acting as spies, refusing Confederate bonds, 
and piloting the Yankees. The crime of the 
negroes and mulattoes was endeavouring to 
escape on the underground railroad from Dixie 
land and the Iron Furnace. These remained 
till their masters were informed of their arrest, 
and came for and released them. On the even- 
ing preceding our imprisonment, two prisoners 
had been led out and shot, and I soon learned 
that this was no unusual occurrence. Nearly 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 89 

every day witnessed the execution of one or 
more of us. Those who were doomed to die 
were heavily ironed. In some cases, however, 
those who were not in fetters were taken out 
and shot or hanged, often with no previous 
warning; though sometimes a few hours warn- 
ing was given. 

Our privations were so great from a want of 
proper food and water — for the scanty amount 
of water furnished us was tepid and foul — and 
from a lack of beds, cots, couches, or some- 
thing better than a filthy floor whereon to sleep, 
that I resolved to attempt an escape at the risk 
of my life. I felt confident that I could not long 
survive such cruel treatment. As soon as my 
arrest was known to the thirty-second Missis- 
sippi regiment, encamped in the suburbs of 
Tupelo, the colonel, major, adjutant, and one of 
the captains called upon me. This regiment was 
raised in Tishomingo county, one of the com- 
panies, the Zollicoffer Avengers, being from, 
Eienzi, where I had been for years proprietor 
and Principal of the Eienzi Female Seminary. 
The daughters of many of the officers of this 
8* 



90 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

regiment had been educated at this Seminary 
during my superintendence. Some of these 
officers had expressed themselves under great 
obligations to me, for the thorough, moral, men- 
tal, and physical training of their children 
while under my care. As proof of this, I have 
their own statements, as published in the public 
journals of the day. Owing me a debt of grati- 
tude, as they professed, could I expect less than 
the manifestation of deep sympathy for me in 
my sad condition — confined in a gloomy dun- 
geon, deprived of the comforts, yea, even the 
necessaries of life, menaced and insulted by the 
officers in whose power I was ? Whatever may 
have been my hopes, they were doomed to be 
blasted. These summer friends, so obsequious 
in my prosperity, conversed for a while on 
indifferent topics, never alluding to my condi- 
tion, and as I did not obtrude it upon their 
attention, they left, promising to call again. I 
said, "Do so, gentlemen; you will always find 
me at horned Adjutant Irion, as he passed out, 
asked Lieutenant Malone what the charge was 
against me. Malone replied that I was charged 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 91 

with being a Union man. The adjutant said, 
in a bitter and sarcastic tone, that I should 
never have been brought to Tupelo, but on my 
arrest should have been sent to hell from the 
lowest limb of the nearest tree. 

Having determined to escape at all hazards, I 
sought out an accomplice, a compagnon de voyage; 
that person was Eichard Malone ; his piercing 
eye, his intellectual physiognomy, led me to 
believe that if he consented to make the at- 
tempt with me, our chances for escape would be 
good. I drew Malone to one side, and covertly 
introduced the matter. He soon got my idea, 
and drawing from his pocket a paper, showed 
me the route mapped out which he intended to 
pursue, as he had for some days determined to 
escape, or die in the attempt. He was charged 
with being a spy, and there was little doubt 
that they would establish his guilt by false tes- 
timony. "We went out now under every possi- 
ble pretext. "We no longer shunned the guard 
who came to obtain prisoners to do servile 
labour. Our object being to reconnoitre, in 
order to learn where guards were stationed, and 



92 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

to determine the best method of escape through 
the town after leaving the prison. During the 
day we made these observations: that there 
were two guards stationed at the back door, who 
were very verdant; that they would, after 
relief, come on duty again at midnight; that 
there was a building on the south side of the 
prison, extending beyond the prison and beyond 
the guards; that the moon would set about 
eleven o'clock, P. M. ; that there were no 
guards stationed on the south side of the prison 
during the' day; that one of the planks in 
the floor could be easily removed; and that 
there were several holes, when we were once 
under the floor, by which egress might be made 
either on the north or south side; that the 
coast was probably clearest in the direction of a 
corn-field some two hundred yards distant in 
a northwest direction. 

At four o'clock P. M., our plan was fully 
matured. At midnight, (the moon being down, 
and the verdant guards on duty ) we would 
raise the plank, get under the floor, and myself 
in the advance, make our exit through one of 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 93 

the holes on the south side of the jail, then 
crawl to the building, some fifteen feet distant, 
and continue crawling till we passed the guards ; 
then rise and make our way as cautiously as 
possible, to a point in the corn-field, a short 
distance in the rear of a garment which was 
hanging upon the fence. The one who first 
arrived must await the other. A signal was 
agreed upon, to prevent mistake. If the 
guards ordered us to halt, we had resolved to 
risk their fire, our watchword being, Liberty 
or death! 

About this time the prisoners chose me 
their chaplain by acclamation. During the 
day, we made known our intention of escap- 
ing to several fellow-prisoners, who promised 
us all the assistance in their power. All the 
prisoners who knew of the matter, earnestly 
desired our escape, and co-operated with us 
in effecting it. Clarke and Eobinson begged 
us to take them along, averring there was 
no doubt that they would be shot. Malone 
told them that no more than two could go 



94 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

together; that if they wished to escape, they 
could make the attempt half an hour after us, 
which they agreed to. Clarke, however, came 
to me, and desired me to take him along, 
as he would rather go with us than with 
Eobinson. He had a wife and five small 
children dependent on him for support, and if 
he perished, they must perish too. I consulted 
Malone, but he would not agree to have Clarke 
go with us. Three would be too many for 
safety, and he doubted whether Clarke had suf- 
ficient nerve to face the glittering bayonet, or 
tact enough to pass through the camps with- 
out detection. He might commit some blunder 
which would endanger our safety. I informed 
Clarke that the arrangement made, in which 
he and Eobinson were to go together, must be 
adhered to. He begged me, by all that was 
sacred, to take him along. But Malone was 
inexorable, and I thought it best to acquiesce 
in his judgment. 

Night drew on apace. Thick darkness gath- 
ered around us, and murky clouds covered the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION". 95 

sky, as we sat down witli the Federal prisoners 
to onr scanty allowance. While partaking of 
onr rude fare, Malone thns spoke : 

" This day is the 4th of July, 1862, the anni- 
versary of onr patriot fathers' declaration of 
independence of British tyranny and oppres- 
sion. They had mnch to complain of. They 
suffered grievous wrongs and cruel bondage. 
But eighty-six years ago to-day they declared 
themselves to be a free and independent peo- 
ple, who would rather die than be again 
enslaved. Of what worth was their declaration 
if they had remained inactive? Supineness 
would not have saved them. But trusting in 
our God, who gives success to the righteous 
cause, they imperilled their lives, they hazard- 
ed their fortunes, and with untiring energy and 
sleepless vigilance they contested to the bitter 
end against all efforts to deprive them of their 
inalienable rights. Success crowned their ef- 
forts, and they rid themselves of tyrants' chains. 
We (I allude to my friend, Parson Aughey, and 
myself,) degenerate sons of these noble sires, 
have suffered wrong, nay, gross outrage. Citi- 



96 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

zens of the sunny South, guilty of no offence 
whatever, not even of constructive crime, we 
are immured in a loathsome dungeon, deprived 
of the comforts of life, separated from our 
families, and suffered to have no communica- 
tion with them; dragging out a miserable exist- 
ence, which an ignominious death on the scaf- 
fold must soon end. We, therefore, John H. 
Aughey and Kichard Malone, in view of these 
accumulated wrongs and outrages, solemnly 
swear before High Heaven, and in presence of 
these witnesses, that we will be free, or perish 
in the attempt. Appealing to the God of liber- 
ty, of truth, and of righteousness, for the recti- 
tude of our motives and the justness of our 
cause, we commit ourselves into his hands, 
and implore his protection amid the dangers 
through which we are about to pass, and hum- 
bly pray that he will give us success, and 
restore us speedily to our families and friends, 
and to the enjoyment of our inalienable rights, 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

Grasping the Lieutenant by the hand, I con- 
sented to this Declaration of Independence of 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 97 

rebel thraldom. We gave our respective 
addresses to our friends, who promised, that if 
the j were ever liberated, and we were killed 
by the guards, they would write to our fami- 
lies, informing them of the manner of our 
death. 

About ten o'clock, Malone raised the plank, 
and I went under to reconnoitre. I remained 
under the floor about ten minutes, having 
learned that there were no guards patroling the 
south side of the house, as we feared might be 
the case after night. We had learned, from 
observation, that there were none during the 
day. Just at the noon of night, we heard the 
relief called. Malone and I endeavoured to 
find the prisoners who were to raise the plank, 
but not being able readily to do so, we raised 
the plank ourselves, and both got under with- 
out difficulty. Malone getting under first, was, 
contrary to agreement, compelled to take the 
lead. As he was passing out, he made con- 
siderable noise. To warn him of the danger, 
I patted him on the back. Reaching back, he 
gave my hand a warm pressure, to assure me 
9 



98 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

that all was right, and passed out. I followed, 
and reached the designated point in the corn- 
field in about half an hour, having to use the 
utmost precaution, and in some cases to pass 
the guards by crawling in a serpentine manner. 
When I arrived, I gave the preconcerted sig- 
nal, but Malone was nowhere to be seen. I 
waited for him two hours at least, when I was 
compelled to seek my safety alone. 

Not being able to meet with my friend, I 
regarded as a great misfortune, because, after 
reaching a point ten miles north of Tupelo, he 
would be familiar with the country. I had fre- 
quently passed through the town on the rail- 
road, but knew nothing of the country through 
which I must travel. Somewhat depressed in 
spirits at the loss of my comjiagnon de voyage, 
I resolved to reach my family by the safest and 
most practicable route. Still in the midst of 
camps, I had* considerable difficulty in making 
my way out of them. "When I thought that 
this had been effected, I found that day was 
brightening in the east. Looking around for 
some place to hide, I soon found a dense, 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 99 

though small thicket, in which I secreted 
myself as covertly as possible. Having slept 
but little since my arrest, I endeavoured to 
compose myself to slumber, and partially suc- 
ceded; but soon the noise and confusion of 
soldiers passing and re-passing near, awoke and 
alarmed me. I soon learned that I was near a 
camp, and that the soldiers had found a suit- 
able place for bathing in a creek which ran 
within thirty yards of my place of conceal- 
ment. There were two paths by which they 
reached the creek. On one, they passed within 
fifteen feet of me ; on the other, within six or 
seven. About nine o'clock, I heard the boom- 
ing of cannon all around me, proceeding from 
the different camps. The soldiers who passed 
me stated, in their conversation, that the can- 
non were firing in honour of a great victory 
obtained over General McClellan, in Virginia. 
According to their statement, his whole army, 
after a succession of losses, during eight days' 
fighting, had been completely annihilated, and 
that Stonewall Jackson would be in Washing- 

o 

ton city before the close of the week. 



100 THE IRON FURNACE: OR 



The day passed slowly away. At one time 
two soldiers came within a few feet of me in 
search of blackberries, bnt passed ont without 
detecting me. At another time two soldiers sat 
down to converse, so near that their lowest tones 
were distinctly audible. One informed the other 
that he had been in town in the morning, and 
had learned that the Clerical Spy, Parson 
Aughey, and a fellow by the name of Malone, 
had broke jail, but that they would soon be 
brought in, as a company of cavalry had been 
put on their track, with a pack of bloodhounds. 
Soon after this, one of them arose and struck a 
bush several times, which seemed to be but a 
very short distance above my head. I thought 
that he had discovered me, and was about to 
rise and run, when I heard him say to his com- 
panion, that he had attempted to kill a very 
large snake, which had escaped to the bushes. 
I began to feel somewhat uncomfortably situ- 
ated when I learned that I was in close prox- 
imity to a large snake, though I would have 
preferred meeting with an anaconda, boa-con- 
strictor, rattlesnake, or even the deadly cobra 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 101 

di capello, rather than with those vile secession- 
ists thirsting for innocent blood. 

I thought this 5th of July was the longest 
day I had ever known. The sun was so long 
in reaching the zenith, and so slow in passing 
down the steep ecliptic way to the Occident. 
The twilight, too, seemed of endless duration. 
But as all long days have had an end, so had 
this. The stars came glittering one by one. I 
soon recognised that old staunch and immovable 
friend of all travellers on the underground rail- 
road, the polar-star. 

Eising from my lair, I was soon homeward 
bound, guided by the north-star and an oriental 
constellation. Plunging into a dense wood I 
found my rapid advance impeded by the un- 
dergrowth, and great difficulty in following my 
guiding stars, as the boughs of the great oaks 
rendered them invisible, or dimly seen. Fa- 
tigued, hungry, and sleepy, I at length lay 
down at the foot of a large swamp -oak tree, 
intending to take a nap, and then rise and pur- 
sue my journey. When I awoke the sun was 
just rising. I arose filled with regret for the 
9* 



102 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

time I had lost. Though somewhat refreshed 
by my sound sleep, yet I was very hungry 
and almost famished with thirst. 

After travelling about half a mile I came to 
a small log-house on a road-side. Feeling sick 
and faint, I resolved to go to the house to 
obtain water, and, if I liked the appearance of 
the inmates, to reveal my condition, and ask for 
aid. Upon reaching the house I met the pro- 
prietor, but did not like his physiognomy. He 
looked the villain ; a sinister expression, a coun- 
tenance revealing no intellectuality , except a sort 
of low cunning, bore testimony that it would 
be foolish to repose confidence in the possessor 
of such villanous looks. I asked for water, in- 
tending to drink and leave. He pointed to the 
bucket ; I drank and bade him good morning, 
and turned to leave. I had proceeded but 
a few steps, when I was ordered, in a sten- 
torian tone, to halt. On looking round, I 
saw. a soldier within a few steps, presenting a 
double-barrelled gun; another soldier was 
standing near, heavily armed. I asked by 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 103 

what authority he halted me. To which he 
replied : 

"I know you, sir; I have heard you preach 
frequently. You are Parson Aughey, and you 
were arrested and confined in prison at Tupelo. 
I was in Lowrey's regiment yesterday, and 
learned that you had broken jail; and now, sir, 
you must return. My name is Dan Barnes. 
You may have heard of me." 

I had indeed heard of him. He had been 
guilty of robbing the United States mail, had 
fled to Napoleon or Helena, Arkansas, where 
he was arrested, brought back, and incarcer- 
ated in jail at Pontotoc, and confined there for 
nearly a year. As the evidence against him 
was positive, he would have been sent to the 
penitentiary; but, fortunately for him, at this 
juncture Mississippi seceded. There being then 
no United States officers to execute the laws, 
he was liberated, and soon after joined the 
army. 

After breakfast, which I paid for, Barnes 
called me to one side, and told me that he felt 
sorry for me, and would afford me an opportu- 



104 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 



nity of escaping, if I would pay him a reason- 
able sum. He had been in a tight place him- 
self, and would have been glad had some friend 
been near to aid him. He named two hundred 
and forty dollars as the reasonable sum for 
permitting me to escape. After getting my 
money, their horses were saddled, and telling 
me he was playing-off on me, said I must go to 
General Jordan's head-quarters at Priceville, to 
which place he and Huft^ the proprietor of the 
log cabin, conducted me. 

On my arrival, General Jordan ordered me 
to be put in irons, and placed under guard. I 
was taken to a blacksmith's shop in the town, 
the General accompanying the guard, and heavy 
iron bands were put around my ankles, and 
connected by a chain. The bands were put on 
hot, and my boots were burnt in the operation. 
The blacksmith seemed averse to the order, and 
only obeyed it upon compulsion. The General 
stood by, and saw that it was well done. "Iron 
him securely — securely, sir," was his oft re- 
peated order. The ironing caused me much 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 105 

pain. My ankles were long discoloured from 
the effects of it. 

After my manacles were put on, I was 
taken back to Tupelo by Barnes and another 
guard. On my arrival, the commander of the 
post and the Provost Marshal were filled with 
joy. Barnes gave them the history of the 
arrest, stating that I had attempted to bribe 
him ; that he listened to my proposition with 
indignation, and when he had got the money, 
performed what he regarded his duty. The 
commander replied that all the property of 
traitors was theirs, and that he did right in 
deceiving me, after accepting the bribe. He 
also recommended Barnes for promotion for his 
heroic and patriotic act in arresting me. (Per- 
haps it secured for him a captaincy.) The fol- 
lowing colloquy now took place between the 
commander of the post, the Provost Marshal, 
and myself: 

" Why did you attempt to leave us ?" 
"Because, sir, your prison was so filthy, and 
your fare so meagre and unwholesome, that I 
could not endure it long, and live." 



106 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

"Parson, you know the Bible says, the 
wicked flee when no man pnrsueth, but the 
righteous are as bold as a lion. You must 
have been guilty of crime, or you would not 
have tried to escape." 

"I may have been guilty of the offence 
charged against me, and yet innocent of real 
guilty 

"You shall never be taken back to the 
prison you left, rest assured of that. Did any 
of the prisoners know of or aid you in your 
escape ?" 

"No, sir; none of them knew anything 
about it." 

"Are you telling the truth?" 

" I am." 

"Where is Malone?" 

" I never saw him after I left the building." 

" He cannot escape ; the cavalry are after 
him, and he will be brought in soon, dead or 
alive." 

"Why did you attempt to bribe Barnes?" 

"It was his own offer. I knew that his 
cupidity was great, and thought it no harm to 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 107 

accept his offer. If Barnes had his deserts, he 
would now be hard at work in the peni- 
tentiary." 

"Did the jury that tried him, acquit him?" 
"No. The secession of Mississippi saved 
him. I refer you to Colonel Tison, who is in 
Tupelo, for the particulars. He being marshal 
of North Mississippi, arrested Barnes, and 
knows all about it. He found on his j3erson 
the evidence of his guilt, the money and checks 
stolen when he robbed the mail." 

" Parson, you will not be immediately exe- 
cuted, but you will, without doubt, hang in a 
week or two, so that, if you have any word to 
send your family, you have permission to do 
so." 

"May I write a letter to my wife?" 
"You may, and I will see that it is for- 
warded to her." 

I sat down and wrote a letter, a very 
common-place letter, to my wife, inserting, 
occasionally, a word in phonography, which, 
taken in connection, read thus: "If possible, 
inform General Kosecrans or Nelson of my 



108 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

arrest." While inspecting the letter, Lieu- 
tenant Peden noticed the phonography, and 
asked me to read it. I read it thus : " My 
dear wife, I hope to be at home soon. Do not 
grieve." This letter they never sent. It was 
merely an act of duplicity on their part, to 
obtain some concession, which might be used 
against me. The guard, receiving orders, now 
conducted me to a hotel, and placed me in a 
small room, two guards remaining inside, and 
two at the door outside, with orders to shoot me 
if I made the least attempt at escape. I re- 
mained in this room only a few hours, after 
which I was taken to my old prison. As I 
entered, my old friends, the prisoners, crowded 
around me, and Captain Bruce addressed me 
in his facetious manner. In prison, his wit had 
beguiled many a tedious hour. His humour 
was the pure Attic salt. 

" Parson Aughey, you are welcome back to 
my house, though you have played us rather a 
scurvy trick in leaving without giving me the 
least inkling of the matter, or settling your 
bill." 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 109 

I replied : " Captain, it was hardly right ; but 
I did not like your fare, and your beds were 
filled with vermin." 

"Well, you do not seem to have fared better 
since you left, for you have returned." 

"Captain, my return is the result of coercion. 
Some who oppose this principle when applied 
to themselves, have no scruples in enforcing it 
upon others. 

"No rogue e'er felt the halter draw, 
With good opinion of the law ;" 

is an old saw, and the truth of proverbs is sel- 
dom affected by time. I am your guest upon 
compulsion; but remember, I will leave you 
the first opportunity." 

Upon hearing this, an officer present swore 
that when I again left that building, it would be 
to cross the railroad, (the place of execution.) 

The prisoners gathered around me, and I 
related to them my adventures. They then 
informed me of what had transpired during my 
absence. Clarke was taken out of prison to 
guide a cavalry company in search of me. 
10 



110 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

Clarke informed me that they scoured the 
country, and then went to my father-in-law's; 
and after searching the premises, returned, 
believing that I had gone due north towards 
Eienzi, in which direction another company 
had been despatched. On their return, Clarke 
was remanded to jail. At roll-call — seven 
o'clock, A. M., we were missed. The cavalry 
were immediately sent in pursuit. All the 
guards on duty during the night were put 
under arrest. Our method of escape was soon 
discovered, and the guards were released, as 
they were not at fault. A large number of 
spikes were hammered in the floor, the guards 
were doubled, and greater vigilance enjoined. 
The prisoners were questioned, strictly and 
individually, to learn whether any of them 
knew of our intention to escape, or had ren- 
dered us any assistance. They all positively 
denied any knowledge of the matter. They 
asked me whether I had given the officers any 
information about their knowledge of our 
designs, and cooperation in effecting them. I 
replied that I had positively denied that any 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. Ill 

except Malone and myself were privy to our 
plans. 

I may state here that it is difficult to justify 
a falsehood. We ought to utter truth always, 
without exaggeration or prevarication, leaving 
consequences with God. We should do right 
without regard to results, for with consequences 
we have no business; but in this case the 
temptation to utter an untruth was great. 
These wicked men, thirsting for my blood, had 
no right to make me criminate myself or my 
coadjutors. It would have been wrong for me 
to give them the information they desired. 
Truth is too precious for a secessionist, thirst- 
ing for innocent blood. Had I refused to 
answer, they would have suspected that some 
of my fellow-prisoners aided us, and would 
have either forced me to tell who they were, or 
would have hanged me instantly for my refu- 
sal. If I had given information, and crimi- 
nated those who had befriended us, they would 
have been severely punished, and I have been 
guilty of the basest ingratitude; I would 
have been shunned by the prisoners, and 



112 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

regarded as one of the meanest of men, one 
of the veriest wretches in existence; I could 
never again ask nor expect aid in a similar 
attempt to save myself from a violent death. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 113 



CHAPTER IY. 

LIFE IN A DUNGEON. 

Parson Aughey as Chaplain — Description of the Prisoners — 
Colonel Walter, the Judge Advocate — Charges and Speci- 
fications against Parson Aughey — A Citizen of the Con- 
federate States — Execution of two Tennesseeans — En- 
listment of Union Prisoners — Colonel Walter's second 
visit — Day of Execution specified — Farewell Letter to 
my Wife — Parson Aughey's Obituary penned by him- 
self — Address to his Soul — The Soul's Reply — Farewell 
Letter to his Parents — The Union Prisoners' Petition to 
Hon. W. H. Seward — The two Prisoners and the Oath of 
Allegiance — Irish Stories. 

I WAS remanded to jail on Sabbath, the 6th 
of July, 1862. On the day of my escape I had 
been elected chaplain. Captain Bruce asked 
permission for me to hold divine service, to 
which no special objection was made. I con- 
ducted the services as I would have done were 
I in my own pulpit. The best order was main- 
tained by the prisoners, and a deep serious- 
ness prevailed. The songs of Zion resounded 
through the prison-house, and a great con- 
10* 



114 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

course of soldiers assembled outside the guards 
in front of the door, causing considerable inter- 
ruption by their noise and insulting language. 
Several officers, also, saw fit to come in and 
interrupt the services by conversing in a loud 
tone, and asking me how I liked my jewelry, 
referring to my fetters. The prisoners protest- 
ed against their rude and ungentlemanly con- 
duct, but with little effect. They sent a remon- 
strance to the commander of the post, but he 
treated it with silent contempt. 

As the prisoners insisted upon it, I persisted 
in preaching, notwithstanding the persecutions 
endured, as long as I remained with them. "We 
were a motley assemblage. Some were dressed 
in cloth of finest texture; others were clad in 
filthy rags. There were present the learned 
and the illiterate, the rowdy and the minister 
of the gospel, the holy and the profane, the 
saint and the sinner. All the Southern States, 
and every prominent religious denomination 
were represented. The youth in his nonage, 
and the gray -haired and very aged man were 
there. The superior and the subordinate were 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 115 

with us. The descendants of Shem, Ham, and 
Japheth, were here on the same common level, 
for in our prison were Afric's dark-browed 
sons, the descendants of Pocahontas, and the 
pure Circassian. Death is said to be the great 
leveller; the dungeon at Tupelo was a great 
leveller. A fellow-feeling made us wondrous 
kind; none shared his morsel alone, and a deep 
and abiding sympathy for each other's woes 
pervaded every bosom. When our fellow-pri- 
soners were called to die, and were led through 
us with pallid brows, and agony depicted on 
their countenances, our expressions of sorrow 
and commiseration were not loud (through 
fear) but deep. 

On Monday morning an officer entered ; my 
name was called, and I arose from the floor on 
which I had been reclining. I recognised him 
as my old friend, Colonel H. W. Walter, of 
Holly Springs, Mississippi. After the ordinary 
salutations, he informed me that he was Judge 
Advocate, and that my trial would take place 
in a few days, and inquired whether I wished 
to summon any witnesses. I gave him the 



116 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

names and residences of several witnesses, bnt 
he refused to send for them, upon the plea 
that they were too near the Federal lines, and 
their cavalry might be in danger of capture 
were they to proceed thither. I told him that 
the cavalry which went in pursuit of me had 
visited that locality. He then wished to know 
what I desired to prove by those witnesses. I 
replied that I wished to prove that the specifi- 
cations in the charge of being a spy were false. 
"Your own admissions are sufficient to cause 
you to lose your life." said the Colonel, "and I 
will not send for those witnesses." 

I replied : " I know that I must die, and you 
need not go through the formality of a trial. 
If condemned as a spy, I must be hanged. I 
only wished the witnesses to prove that Wood- 
ruff is a man of no moral worth, that his testi- 
mony is false ; that Barnes is a mail-robber, 
and that his testimony, therefore, should be 
rejected. Proving these facts, the other charges 
which I admit, will cause me to be shot. I 
hope I am prepared to die, but do not wish to 
die a dog's death. Promise me that I shall be 



SLAVERY" AND SECESSION. 117 

shot, and not hanged, and I will cavil no 
more." 

"Parson Aughey, your chances for livingi 
are very slender. The proof against you on 
both charges will be established ; the testimony 
as to your guilt is positive, and spies are 
always hanged." 

He then stated the charges and specifications 
against me as follows : 
First charge — Treason. 

Specification 1st. That said Aughey stated to 
a member of Hill's cavalry, that if McClellan 
were defeated, the North could raise a much 
larger army in a very short time; that the 
North would eventually conquer the South, 
and that he was a Union man — this for the 
purpose of giving aid and comfort to the 
enemy. 

Specification 2d. That when said Aughey 
was requested to take the oath of allegiance to 
the Confederate States, he refused, giving as a 
reason, that England, France, and himself, had 
not yet recognised the Southern Confederacy, 
stating, also, that he had voluntarily taken the 



118 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

oath of allegiance to the United States Govern- 
ment, which he regarded as binding — this in 
North Mississippi. 

Specification 3d. That said Aughey was act- 
ing as a Federal agent in the purchase of cot- 
ton, and had received from the United States 
Government a large amount of gold, to pay for 
the cotton purchased. 

Second charge — Acting as a spy. 

Specification 1st. That said Aughey, while a 
citizen of the Confederate States, repeatedly 
came into our lines for the purpose of obtain- 
ing information for the benefit of the enemy, 
and that he passed through the lines of the 
enemy at pleasure, holding an unlimited pass 
from General Nelson, granting that privilege — 
this in the vicinity of Corinth, Mississippi. 

Witnesses, Wallace, Dan Barnes, Ferdi- 
nand Woodruff Williams, David Huff. 

I demanded a copy of the charges, which 
Colonel Walter promised to furnish. 

About three o'clock in the afternoon, I went 
to a couple of prisoners who were heavily 
ironed; they were handcuffed, had a chain on 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 119 

their legs similar to mine, and were chained 
together to a post, or to some fixture at the 
side of the jail. I inquired for what offence 
they were incarcerated. 

The prisoner whom I addressed was a tall 
gentleman, with a very intellectual counte- 
nance, and of prepossessing manners. He was 
somewhat pale, and wore a sad countenance. 
He replied: 

"We are charged with desertion." 

"Did you desert?" 

"I enlisted in the Confederate service for 
twelve months. At the expiration of my term 
of service, I asked permission to return home, 
stating that my family were suffering for the 
necessaries of life ; that they lived in Tennessee, 
which is occupied by Federal troops. Confede- 
rate bonds are there not worth the paper on 
which they are printed ; provisions are scarce, 
and my family have not the means of pur- 
chasing. I wish to relieve their wants, and as 
my term of service has expired, I wish a dis- 
charge. This they refused, stating that the 
Confederate Congress had passed a law requir- 



120 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

ing all troops who had enlisted for any term, 
however short, to be held to service during 
the war, and all who left before that time 
would be considered guilty of desertion, and 
if arrested, would be shot. I attempted to 
return to my family, regarding the law a tyran- 
nical enactment. I was arrested and commit- 
ted to this prison." 

"What will be your fate?" 

" I know not, but fear the worst." 

I learned that the other prisoner had about 
the same statement to make, and was also in 
dread of capital punishment. I left them and 
walked to the opposite side of the prison, when 
I observed a file of soldiers drawn up in front 
of the building. Two officers entered, and 
walking up to the two prisoners whom I had 
just left, unfastened their chains, and ordered 
them to follow. One of the prisoners asked 
whether he should bring his blanket. "No," 
replied the officer, in a jocular tone; "you have 
no more need for a blanket in this world." 

On reaching the door, the soldiers separated, 
received the prisoners in their midst, closed up, 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 121 

and marching them across the railroad, shot 
them. As the officers passed Captain Bruce, 
he asked where the prisoners were going. 
They replied, " Going to be shot P' and showed 
him the warrant for their execution, having 
written across it, in red letters, "Condemned to 
death /" 

Thus was perpetrated an act of cruel 
tyranny, which cries loudly to Heaven for ven- 
geance. Two families, helpless and destitute, 
were thus each deprived of its head, on whom 
they were dependent for support, and aban- 
doned to the cold charitv of a selfish world. 
The wages they earned by a year's faithful ser- 
vice in behalf of the wicked, cruel, and vindic- 
tive Confederate States, was an ignominious 
death and a dishonoured grave. Will not God 
visit for this? The widow and the fatherless 
cry to Heaven for vengeance, and their cries 
have entered into the ears of the Lord of 
Sabaoth. 

On Tuesday morning, six young men, who 
had been arrested for their Union sentiments, 
resolved to escape. Their plan was to enlist in 
11 



122 THE IRON FURNACE: OR 



the Confederate service, then to desert on the 
first opportunity, and make their way to the 
Federal lines. They consulted me as to the 
propriety of taking the oath of allegiance 
under these circumstances. Such a step would 
give them another chance for life; but were 
they to profess adherence to their Union princi- 
ples, they had no hope of living many days. 
If permitted to enlist, they thought there was 
little doubt of their escape in a few days ; and 
should a battle take place, no Federal soldiers 
would be injured by them, and an opportunity 
to desert might occur during the engagement. 
I drew up a paper for them, requesting permis- 
sion to enlist in a company which they speci- 
fied. Their petition was granted by the autho- 
rities, and they were removed from prison to 
the camp. I feel confident that ere this, they 
are safe in the Federal lines, for they knew the 
whole country, so as to be able to travel by 
night or by day, with little danger of detection. 
They had all been arrested at their homes by 
the Eebel cavalry. They were bitter in senti- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 123 

ment against the military usurpation, self- 
styled the Confederate States of America. 

This (Tuesday) evening, Colonel Walter 
called again, to give me a copy of the charges 
against me. He informed me that my trial 
had been deferred till Monday, the 15th inst. 
He also informed me in advance, that I must 
die, and that, doubtless, on the day after the 
trial. I asked and obtained permission to send 
for the Kev. Dr. Lyon, of Columbus, Missis- 
sippi, to be present at my execution. Dr. Lyon 
and I were co -presbyters, both being mem- 
bers of the Tombeckbee Presbytery. Colonel 
Walter was a renegade Yankee. Coming from 
Michigan to Mississippi, he married the daugh- 
ter of a wealthy slave-holder. Obtaining 
through her the control of a large number of 
slaves, he became a very ultra advocate of the 
peculiar institution, and a rabid secessionist. 

Soon after Colonel Walter left, Colonel Ware 
came in, and asked me if I had been President 
of a Female College in Eienzi. I replied in 
the affirmative. 'Tis strange, said he, that one 
who has been so favoured, and one who has 



124 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

accumulated property in the South, should 
prove a traitor to the land of his adoption, and 
side with his enemies. "I replied that I had 
given a fair equivalent for every dollar I had 
obtained from the citizens of the South; that 
for eleven years I had laboured faithfully as a 
teacher and minister of the gospel to promote 
the educational and spiritual interests of the 
Southern people ; and that now I was receiving 
my reward in being chained, starved, and in- 
sulted; and that they intended soon to pay the 
last instalment by putting me to death igno- 
miniously on the scaffold ; I also denied being 
an enemy to the South. I regarded those who 
imperilled all her best interests, and plunged 
her into a protracted and desolating war, as the 
real enemies of the South. If my^ advice had 
been followed, the South and the whole coun- 
try would now be enjoying its wonted peace 
and prosperity. He only replied with cursing 
and vituperation. 

Believing my end to be near, I sat down 
upon the floor of my dungeon, and j)enned the 
following letter to my wife. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 125 

Tupelo Military Dungeon, July 10th, 1862. 

My Dear Mary — The Confederate authori- 
ties announce to me that I have only a few more 
days to live. When you receive this letter, the 
hand that penned it will be cold in death. My 
soul will have passed the solemn test before 
the bar of God ; I have a good hope through 
grace that I will be then rejoicing amid the 
sacramental host of God's elect, singing the 
new song of redeeming love in . the presence 
of Him who is the Chief among ten thou- 
sand, and the one altogether lovely. Mary, 
meet me in heaven, where sorrow, and crying,, 
and sin are not known, and where the wicked 
cease from troubling, and the weary are at 
rest. I will request your brother Ramsey, and 
cousin, Captain Tankersley, to convey my body 
to you. Bury me. in the graveyard at Beth- 
any. Plant an evergreen — a cedar — at my 
head, and one at my feet, and there let me 
repose in peace, till the Archangel's trump 
shall sound, calling the dead to the judgment 
of the great day, and vouchsafing to saints the 
long wished-for " redemption of the body." 
11* 



126 THE IKON FURNACE; OE 

As to my property, it has till been confis- 
cated ; and after years of incessant toil, I leave 
you penniless and dependent; but trust in God. 
To his protecting care I commit you and our 
dear little Kate, who has promised that he will 
be the widow's husband, and the father of the 
fatherless. Eest assured, the Lord will provide. 
Only trust in him, and love him with your 
whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. 
" I know that it shall be well with those that 
love God." Be not faithless, but believing, and 
though clouds and thick darkness surround you 
at present, a more auspicious day will dawn, 
and God will bring you safely to your jour- 
ney's end, and our reunion in heaven will be 
sweet. 

Our dear little daughter, Kate, bring up in 
the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Teach 
her to walk in wisdom's ways, for her ways are 
ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are 
peace. Her mind may be compared to wax, in 
its susceptibility for receiving impressions, and 
to marble, for its power of retaining those 
impressions. O that she may be satisfied early 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 127 

with the mercy of God, that she may rejoice 
and be glad all her days ! Teach her to remem- 
ber her Creator in the days of her youth, before 
the evil days come, in which she shall say, I 
have no pleasure in thee. Make the Bible her 
constant study, and let its words be as house- 
hold words to her. Inspire her mind with a 
reverence for the Booh which is able to make 

wise unto salvation. See to it that the words 

w 

of Christ dwell richly in her soul, that she may 
be filled with wisdom, and knowledge, and 
spiritual understanding. Pray for the Holy 
Spirit to bless your labours and instructions, 
without which all your efforts would be in 
vain, and pray that the Third Person of the 
adorable Trinity may take up his abode in 
her heart, and dwell with her for ever. 

As my duties in regard to instructing our 
child, will devolve solely on you, take for your 
guidance, in this respect, Deut. vi. 5 — 9. Let 
your example be such as you would wish her 
to follow. Children are much more inclined to 
follow example than precept. Exercise care in 



128 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

this respect, for, "as is the mother, so is her 
daughter." 

I regret my family will, from the force of 
circumstances, be compelled to remain in a land 
where my death will be considered disgraceful, 
but it cannot be avoided. The time may come 
when, even in Mississippi, I may be regarded 
as a patriot martyr. My conscience is void of 
offence, as regards the guilt attached to the 
charges made against me. I am charged with 
treason against the Confederate States. The 
charge and the specifications are true, except 
that I was not a Federal agent in the purchase 
of cotton. That was a private arrangement 
altogether. I am also charged with acting as 
a spy. The specifications under this charge are 
false. I think that this accusation was made to 
prevent retaliation by the Federal generals ; 
and in the Kebel army they are not at a loss to 
prove any charge, however false. Ferdinand 
Woodruff is their tool to prove me a spy, 
and he will do it, though he knows his testi- 
mony to be as false as that of the suborned 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 129 

witnesses who bore testimony against the 
Saviour. 

How long shall the wicked triumph? How 
long will God forbear to execute that ven- 
geance which is his, and which he will repay 
sooner or later ! I feel confident that the right 
cause will prevail, and though I will not live 
to see it, for my days are numbered, yet I 
firmly believe that the rebel power will be 
destroyed utterly. 

" Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again ; 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
And dies amid her worshippers." 

I write this letter amid the din and confusion 
incident to a large number of men crowded 
into a narrow compass, and free from all 
restraint. This letter will be transmitted to 
you by friends. The names of those friends 
you will know hereafter. They will present 
your case to General Eosecrans or Nelson, 
who may obtain a pension for you. My ser- 
vices heretofore in the Union cause are known 
to them, and I think they will soe that you 



130 THE IRON furnace; or 

do not suffer; all my real estate will be res- 
tored to you if the Union cause triumphs, and 
I think there is no doubt as to its success. 
Give my love to all my friends. Remember 
that I have prayed for you unceasingly during 
my imprisonment, and my last utterances on 
earth will be prayers for your welfare. 

Farewell. God bless you, and preserve you 
and our dear little Kate. 

Your affectionate husband, 

John H. Aughey. 

I next wrote my obituary, which I placed in 
the hands of a Union soldier who expected 
soon to be exchanged. By him it was to be 
sent to the editors of The Presbyterian, pub- 
lished in Philadelphia, with a request that it 
should appear in their columns. 

OBITUARY. 

Died, in Tupelo, Ittawamba county, Missis- 
sippi, July — , 1862, the Rev. John H. Aughey. 
The subject of the above notice was executed 
on the gallows, by authority of the Confederate 
States, on the charges of treason and acting as 
a spy. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. lol 

John H. Aughey was born in New Hartford, 
Oneida county, New York, May 8th, 1828; 
removed with his parents to Steubenville, Ohio, 
in 1837; is an alumnus of Franklin College, 
New Athens, Harrison county, Ohio; studied 
theology in Memphis, Tennessee, under the 
Rev. John H. Gray, D. D., President of Mem- 
phis Synodical College — also under the care of 
the Rev. S. I. Reid of Holly Springs, Missis- 
sippi ; was licensed to preach the gospel by the 
Presbytery of Chickasaw, October 4th, 1856; 
was ordained to the full work of the gospel 
ministry by the Presbytery of Tombeckbee, at 
its session in Winston county, Mississippi, in 
April, 1861. God blessed his labours by giv- 
ing him many seals to his ministry. After 
labouring eleven years in the South as a 
teacher and minister of the gospel, having 
never injured a citizen of the South either in 
person or property, he suffered a felon's death 
for attachment to the Federal Union, because 
he would not turn traitor to the government 
which had never in a single instance oppressed, 
but had always afforded him protection. He 



132 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

rests in peace, and in the hope of a blessed 

immortality. 

" Leaves have their time to fall, 
And flowers to wither in the north wind's breath, 

And stars to set ; but all — 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, Death!" 

ADDRESS TO MY SOUL. 

O my soul ! thou art about to appear in the 
presence of thy Creator, who is infinite, eternal, 
unchangeable in his being, power, wisdom, 
holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. He can- 
not look upon sin. He is a sin-avenging God, 
and thou art stained with sin. Thy transgres- 
sions are as numerous as the stars of heaven, 
and the sand that is upon the sea-shore. Thou 
art totally debased by sin, and thy iniquities 
abound. Thou art guilty of sins of omission 
and of commission. Justice would consign 
thee to everlasting burnings, to dwell with 
devouring fire, even to everlasting destruction 
from the presence of the Lord and the glory of 
his power. Guilty, helpless, wretched as thou 
art, what is thy plea why sentence of eternal 
death should not be pronounced against thee ? 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 133 

THE SOUL'S REPLY. 

I plead the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
whose blood cleanses from all sin, even from 
sins of the deepest dye. I plead the sufferings 
of Him who bore my sins in his own body, on 
the tree, and wrought out a perfect righteous- 
ness, which I may obtain by simple faith. No 
money, no price is demanded. This I could 
not pay, for all my righteousness is as filthy 
rags, and I must perish, were any part of the 
price demanded. Nothing in my hand I bring. 
My salvation must be all of grace, or to me it 
would be hopeless. I trust that Christ will 
clothe me in the spotless robes of his own 
righteousness, and present me faultless before 
his Father. "With this trust, I go to the 
judgment-seat, assured that the soul which 
trusts in Christ shall never be put to shame. 
God is faithful who has promised. 



Military Dungeon, Tupelo, 
Ittawamba Co., Miss., July 11th, 



lo, ) 

», 1862. \ 

Dear Parents — "Life is sweet, and it is a 
pleasant thing to behold the sun." " All that 
12 



13-4 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

a man hath, will he give for his life." "Having 
promise of the life that now is." "The life is 
more than meat." "They hunt for the precious 
life." The above quotations from the Word 
of Life, show the high estimate that is placed 
upon life. My life is not "precious" in the eyes 
of the Secessionists, for their authorities declare 
that "ray chances for living long are extremely 
slender." " Yet a few days, and me the all- 
beholding sun shall see no more in all his 
course." Mourn not for me, my dear parents, 
as those who have no hope. " For me to live, 
is Christ ; but to die, is gain." I fear not those 
who, when they have killed the body, have no 
more that they can do. But I fear Him whose 
fear casteth out every other fear. When these 
lines are read by you, their author will be an 
inhabitant of the Celestial City, the New Jeru- 
salem, and will be reposing in Abraham's 
bosom, in the midst of the Paradise of God. 
Next to God, my thanks are due to you, for 
guiding my infant feet in the paths of wisdom 
and virtue. In riper years, by precept, I have 
been warned and instructed. By example I 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 135 

have been led, until my habits were fixed, and 
then, accompanied by your parental blessing, I 
sought a distant home, to engage in the ardu- 
ous duties of life. Whatever success I have 
met with, whatever influence for good I may 
have exerted, are all due to your pious training. 
I owe you a debt of gratitude which I can 
never repay. Though I cannot, God will grant 
you a reward lasting as eternity. It will add 
to that exceeding and eternal weight of glory 
which will be conferred on you in that day 
when the heavens shall be dissolved, and the 
elements melt with fervent heat. I die for my 
loyalty to the Federal Government. I know 
that you would not have me turn traitor to 
save my life. Life is precious, but death, even 
death on the scaffold, is preferable to dishonour. 
Kemember me kindly to all my friends. Tell 
sisters Sallie, Mary, and Emma, to meet me in 
heaven. I know that my Kedeemer liveth. 
Dying is but going home. I have taught many 
how to live, and now I am called to teach them 
how to die. May God grant that as my day is, 
so may my strength be, and that, in my last 



136 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

moments, I may not bring dishonour upon my 
Master's cause, but may glorify him in the 
fires ! 

My dear parents, farewell till we meet 
beyond the river. 

Your affectionate son, 

John H. Aughey. 

To David and Elizabeth Aughey, 
Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio. 

The following letter was written to the Hon. 
William H. Seward in behalf of the Union men 
in prison and within the rebel lines. 



>lo, | 
i, 1862. j 



Central Military Prison, Tupelo, 
Ittawamba Co., Mississippi, July 11th, 

Hon. William H. Seward : 

Dear Sir — A large number of citizens of 
Mississippi, holding Union sentiments, and who 
recognise no such military usurpation as the 
so-called Confederate States of America, are 
confined in a filthy prison, swarming with ver- 
min, and are famishing from hunger — a suffi- 
cient quantity of food not being furnished us. 
We are separated from our families, and suf- 
fered to hold no communication with them. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 137 

We are compelled, under a * strong guard, to 
perform the most menial services, and are 
insulted on every occasion by the officers and 
guards of the prison. The nights are very 
cool; we are furnished with no bedding, 
and are compelled to lie down on the floor of 
our dungeon, where sleep seldom visits us, until 
exhausted nature can hold out no longer; then 
our slumbers are broken, restless, and of short 
duration. Our property is confiscated, and our 
families left destitute of the necessaries of life; 
all that they have, yea, all their living, being 
seized upon by the Confederates, and converted 
to their own use. Heavy fetters are placed 
upon our limbs, and daily some of us are led 
to the scaffold, or to death by shooting. Many 
of us are forced into the army, instant death 
being the penalty in case of refusal ; thus con- 
straining us to bear arms against our country, 
to become the executioners of our friends and 
brethren, or to fall ourselves by their hands. 

These evils are intolerable, and we ask pro- 
tection, through you, from the United States 
Government. The Federal Government may 
12* 



138 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

not be able to release us, but we ask the pro- 
tection which the Federal prisoner receives. 
Were his life taken, swift retribution would be 
visited upon the rebels by a just retaliation — a 
rebel prisoner would suffer death for every 
Federal prisoner whom they destroyed. Let 
this rule hold good in the case of Union men 
who are citizens of the South. The loyal Mis- 
sissippian deserves protection as much as the 
loyal native of Massachusetts. We ask, also, 
that our confiscated property be restored to us, 
or, in case of our death, to our families. If it 
be destroyed, let reparation be demanded from 
the rebels, or the property of known and 
avowed secessionists sequestered to that use. 

Before this letter reaches its destination, the 
majority of us will have ceased to be. The 
writer has been informed by the officers that 
"his chances for living long are very slender;" 
that he has confessed enough to cause him to 
lose his life, and the Judge Advocate has speci- 
fied Tuesday, the 15th inst., as the day of his 
execution. We have, therefore, little hope that 
we, individually, can receive any benefit from 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 139 

this petition, though you regard it favourably, 
and consent to its suggestions; but our fami- 
lies, who have been so cruelly robbed of all 
their substance, may, in after time, receive 
remuneration for their great losses. And if 
citizens of avowed secession proclivities, who 
are within the Federal lines, are arrested and 
held as hostages for the safety of Union men 
who are and may be hereafter incarcerated in 
the prison in Tupelo and elsewhere, the rebels 
will not dare put another Union man to death. 
Hoping that you will deem it proper to take 
the matters presented in our petition under 
advisement, we remain, with high considera- 
tions of respect and esteem, your oppressed and 
imprisoned fellow-citizens, 

John H. Aughey, 
Benjamin Clarke, 
John Kobinson, 
and thirty-seven others. 
Two young men informed me to-day that 
they had been forced into the rebel service. 
They had been taken prisoners at Corinth by 
General Pope, and had taken the oath of alle- 



14:0 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

giance to the Federal Government, to which 
their hearts had always been loyal. Recently 
they had been arrested, and on refusing to re- 
join their regiment, were immured in this dun- 
geon. From the threats of the officers, they 
expected to be shot at any moment. They had 
used every means to banish the thoughts of 
death — had forced themselves to engage in 
pleasantry and mirth to drive away the sad- 
ness and gloom which oppressed them when 
alone, and recalled the pleasures of their happy 
homes — homes which they would never see 
again. I counselled them to prepare to meet 
their God in peace ; to wisely improve the short; 
time granted them to make their calling and 
election sure. They replied that they hoped 
all would be well. They had long since con- 
fessed Christ before men, and hoped for sal- 
vation through his merits. Still, they could 
not help feeling sad in the near prospect of 
death. They left me to mingle with a group 
of prisoners, who were endeavouring to dissi- 
pate the tedium, and vary the monotonous 
routine of prison life, by " telling stories." Cap- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 1-il 

tain Bruce led off by telling the following Irish 
story : 

"Once upon a time, an Irishman, who re- 
joiced in the possession of a fine mare and a colt, 
wished to cross the Mississippi river at Baton 
Rouge with them. By some mishap, they were 
all precipitated from the ferry-boat into the 
water. The Irishman, being unable to swim, 
grasped the colt's tail, hoping ti}.us to be car- 
ried to the shore. Some of the passengers 
called out to him: 'Halloo, Pat, why don't 
you take hold of the mare's tail ; she is much 
stronger, and much more able to carry you 
safely to the shore.' '0, be jabers!' says Pat, 
'this is no time for swapping horses.'" This 
tale was received with applause. 

Baltimore Bill, a real Plug-ugly, told his 
story next, as follows: "Two Irishmen, imme- 
diately after their arrival in America, found a 
gun. After long inspection, they concluded 
it was some kind of musical instrument, and 
wishing to hear the music, it was agreed that 
Jimmie should blow at the muzzle, while Pat 
worked with the - fixins' at the breech. At it 



142 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

they went. Soon the gun went off, and Jim- 
mie fell down, shot dead. ' Och !' says Pat, ' are 
you charmed at the first note?'" This story 
was received with loud bursts of laughter. An 
officer then entered, and ordered us to be quiet, 
forbidding us to narrate any more tales. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 143 



CHAPTER Y. 

EXECUTION OF UNION PRISONERS. 

Resolved to Escape — Mode of Executing Prisoners — Re- 
moval of Chain — Addition to our Numbers — Two Priso- 
ners become Insane — Plan of Escape — Proves a Failure — 
Fetters Inspected — Additional Fetters — Handcuffs — A 
Spy in the Disguise of a Prisoner — Special Police Guard 
on Duty — A Prisoner's Discovery — Divine Services — The 
General Judgment — The Judge — The Laws — The Wit- 
nesses — The Concourse — The Sentence. 

On Friday morning, the twelfth of July, as 
I lay restless and sore, endeavouring to find 
some position which would be sufficiently easy 
to permit me to enjoy, even for a few moments, 
the benefit of " Tired nature's sweet restorer, 
balmy sleep," the thought occurred that it 
would be well to attempt an escape, though it 
should result in death from the fire of the 
guards, which would be far preferable to death 
by strangling at the rope's end, and in the 
presence of a large concourse of rebel enemies. 
Their method of shooting was, to dig a hole, 



144 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

and make the victim sit with his legs hanging 
in it. The soldiers would fire three balls 
through the brain, and three through the heart; 
then the mangled and bleeding body fell into 
the grave, and was immediately, covered with 
earth. At first, coffins were used, but of late, 
these had been dispensed with, owing to the 
increased expense, and the increasing number 
of executions. 

I had not long meditated upon this subject, 
when I arose, fully resolved on death or 
liberty. My intentions were communicated to 
several prisoners, who promised me all the aid 
in their power. My fetters were examined, 
and it was concluded, that with proper instru- 
ments my bands could be divested of the iron 
which secured the chain-rings. A long-handled 
iron spoon, a knife, and an old file, were 
obtained, and two were detached at a time to 
work on my fetters. We went to one side 
of the building, and a -sufficient number of 
prisoners stood in front of us, to prevent the 
guard from noticing our proceedings. Our 
locations were changed frequently, to prevent 



SLAVEEY AXD SECESSION. 145 

detection ; and when an officer entered, labour 
was suspended till his exit. 

We called General Bragg, Eobespierre; 
General Jordan, Marat; and General Hardee, 
Danton. Several prisoners were led out and 
shot to-day. The majority of them were Union 
men. Six Union men were committed to jail 
to-day. The horrors of our situation were suf- 
ficient to render two of these victims insane. 
A reign of terror had been inaugurated, only 
equalled, in its appalling enormity, by the 
memorable French Eevolution. Spies and 
informers, in the pay of the Rebel govern- 
ment, prowl through the country, using every 
artifice and strategy to lead Union men to 
criminate themselves, after which they are 
dragged to prison and to death. The cavalry 
dash through the country, burning cotton, car- 
rying off the property of loyal citizens, and 
committing depredations of every kind. 

Several prisoners resolved to attempt an 

escape with me. Our plan was, to bring in 

the axe with which we split wood for cooking, 

and raise a plank in the floor, a sufficient 

13 



146 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

number to stand around those who lifted it, to 
prevent observation, and then make our way 
out among the guards, who were off duty on 
the north side of the building. At this time 
there were three guards in front of each door, 
and two on the south side of the building. On 
the north side of the building, there were no 
guards on duty, for, if the other three sides 
were securely guarded, the prisoners could not 
escape on the north side. There were, how- 
ever, several hundred guards, who, when off 
duty, slept on this side of the prison. When 
their turn came, they went on duty ; and those 
who were relieved, came there to sleep. They 
were coming and going all the time, and during 
the whole night, they kept up an incessant 
noise. 

After the unremitting labour of my friends 
during the day, I found that I could slip 
my chain off and on at pleasure. The sun 
was now setting, but the axe had not been 
brought in. At this time a guard was sta- 
tioned in each door; the favourable moment 
had passed ; none dared to bring the axe past 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 147 

the guard. While deliberating on the best 
course to pursue — as raising a plank had 
proved a failure for the present — General Jor- 
dan and Colonel Clare entered. I was standing 
with others in the middle of the floor. General 
Jordan came directly to me ; either accidentally 
or intentionally, he held up a light to my face. 
"Ah! you are here yet," said he. I gave an 
affirmative nod. "Well," said he to Colonel 
Clare, "I must examine this fellow's irons." 
Putting his hand down, and ascertaining that 
they had been tampered with, he endeavoured, 
ineffectually, to pull the bands off; he did not 
notice that I could slip the chain-rings off. 
"These irons," said he, "are very insecure; 
who helped you to put them in this condition ?" 
I made no reply. After waiting until he found 
I intended none, he continued : " Colonel Clare, 
have these irons secured in the morning; also 
put handcuffs on him, and chain him, so as 
to confine him to one locality ; the gallows ■ 
shall not be cheated of their due." Having 
given these orders, they passed out. As soon 
as they were gone, the prisoners who had aided 



148 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

me crowded around, stating that they believed 
there was a spy in the house, in the guise 
of a prisoner, and declaring that I must escape 
that night, or it would be too late. All real- 
ized that on to-morrow there would be no 
hope. 

There were eleven guards on duty — three in 
front of each door, one in each door, two on 
the south side of the building, and at night 
one passing back and forth through the centre 
of the prison, which was lighted during the 
whole night. There was also a special police 
guard on duty that night, as five Federal pri- 
soners, who remained in our prison until some 
formalities were gone through with, would be 
sent in the morning to the prison at Colum- 
bus, Mississippi, and it was feared they might 
attempt to escape ere they were sent further 
south. 

At this juncture, a young man ran up and 
informed me that he had made a discovery 
which might result in my escape ; I must go 
alone, however, and though they would aid 
me, they would run great risk in doing so. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 149 

Only four could assist, and he would vol- 
unteer to be one of them. Several others 
immediately volunteered, of whom three were 
selected by M , and the plan then commu- 
nicated. At this moment, Captain Bruce an- 
nounced that the hour for divine worship had 
arrived. I asked my friends whether I should 
plead indisposition, and dispense with the ser- 
vices for that time. They replied that it might 
lead to suspicion, and advised me to give them 
a short sermon. I went to my usual place of 
standing, clanking my chains as heretofore. I 
give a synopsis of the sermon. 

The text was 2 Cor. v. 10: "We must all 
appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that 
every one may receive the things done in his 
body, according to that he hath done, whether 
it be good or bad." 

The doctrine of a general judgment was 
revealed to mankind at a very early period of 
the world's history. Enoch, the seventh from 
Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold the Lord 
cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to 
execute judgment upon all, and to convince all 
13* 



150 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

that are ungodly among them of all their 
ungodly deeds which they have ungodly com- 
mitted, and of all their hard speeches which 
ungodly sinners have spoken against him." 
Job declares : " I know that my Eedeemer liv- 
eth, and that he shall stand at the latter day 
upon the earth." Daniel also speaks of a gen- 
eral judgment: "I beheld till the thrones were 
cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, 
whose garment was white as snow, and the hair 
of his head like the pure wool: his throne was 
like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning 
fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth 
from before him: thousand thousands minis- 
tered unto him, and ten thousand times ten 
thousand stood before him : the judgment was 
set, and the books were opened." The New 
Testament is also explicit in its declarations 
that God hath appointed a day in which he 
will judge the world in righteousness by that 
man whom he hath ordained. The text 
declares that we must all appear before the 
judgment-seat of Christ. 

The scenes which will usher in the judgment 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 151 

of the great day will be of the most magnificent 
character. u The heavens shall pass away with 
a great noise, and the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat ; the earth also, and the works that 
are therein, shall be burned up." This does not 
indicate annihilation. God will never annihi- 
late any of his creatures, animate or inanimate. 
The inquiry is often made, what becomes of 
the soul after death, and where does it await 
the general judgment ? A sect called the Soul- 
sleepers, take the position that the soul, after 
death, goes into a torpid state, like bears in 
winter, and thus remains till the sounding of 
the Archangel's trump. There is no Scripture 
to sustain this view, and it is only assumed, to 
avoid the objection that God would not judge 
a soul, and send it to reward or punishment, 
and then bring it back, to be again judged. 
That the soul, at death, passes immediately 
into glory or torment, is proved by many 
scriptures. Paul "desired to depart, and be 
with Christ, which was far better," than re- 
maining on earth. He declares that to be 
present with the body, is to be absent from 



152 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

the Lord. The dying Stephen calls upon 
the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit. These 
holy men would not thus have spoken, if they 
supposed that ages must elapse ere they entered 
heaven. God is not the God of the dead or 
torpid, but of the living. Moses and Elias 
appeared on the mount of transfiguration in 
a state far from torpidity. The dying thief 
received the promise, " This day shalt thou be 
with me in paradise." No mention is made of 
Purgatory or torpidity. The objector urges 
that paradise is not heaven. We are told that 
the river of life flows from the throne of God, 
that the tree of life grows on both sides of 
the river, and that the tree of life grows in 
the midst of the paradise of God. The para- 
dise of God is where he is seated on his throne, 
which is heaven. Paradise is where Christ is. 
The thief would be with Christ in paradise. 
He who regards the Lord Jesus as the Chief 
among ten thousand, the One altogether lovely, 
will deem his presence heaven indeed. As to 
the wicked, it is said of the rich man, that in 
hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment. If, 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 153 

after being judged, the souls of believers, do 
pass immediately into glory, and the wicked 
into torment, what use is there of another or 
general judgment. I reply, We are responsi- 
ble not only for our acts, but for the influence 
which those acts exert through all time. Gib- 
bon, Hume, Kosseau, Paine, and other infidel 
writers, wrote works which, during the life of 
the authors, did great evil. If those wicked 
men passed away from earth impenitent, they 
are now suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 
But the influence for evil, of those wicked 
works, did not cease with the death of their 
authors. Thousands of young men every year 
are led into pernicious and hurtful errors by 
their perusal. At the general judgment, the 
accumulated guilt, for the baleful influence 
exerted through their writings in all time, will 
sink them deeper in the flames of perdition. 
The sainted Alexander, and other pious men 
who are now in heaven, wrote many works 
whose influence for good was great while their 
authors lived; and since their death they are, 
and will continue to be, instrumental in the 



154 THE IRON FURNACE: OR 



hand of God in turning many to righteous- 
ness. All the good accomplished by their 
writings, through all time, will, at the judg- 
ment, add to their exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory. 

In this life, we often see the righteous man 
contending with life's unnumbered woes; all 
the dealings of Providence seem to be adverse. 
While the wicked are in great power, they 
flourish in life, like the green bay-tree, and 
have no bands in their death. These things are 
strange and mysterious. We understand them 
not now; but we shall learn, in that great day, 
when all mysteries are made plain, that God's 
dealings were just, both with the righteous and 
the wicked. 

The text declares that we must all appear 
before the judgment-seat of Christ. This we 
includes all who are now within the sound of 
my voice, and not only us, but all who live 
upon the face of the earth; and the Archan- 
gel's trump will wake the pale nations of the 
dead, and summon them to judgment. The 
dark domain of hell will be vacated, and the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 155 

angels that kept not their first estate, and are 
now reserved in chains of darkness, will appear 
in the presence of the Judge. Heaven's holy 
inhabitants will be present. Thus heaven, 
earth, and hell, will be represented in that 
august assemblage. The scene will bear some 
resemblance to that which takes place in our 
earthly courts. The Lord Jesus Christ will be 
the Judge, and the angels and saints will be 
the jurors, who will consent to and approve of 
the acts of the Judge. The angels will be the 
officers who will summon, from the prison- 
house of hell, the devils, to the trial, and also 
those wicked men who will call upon the rocks 
and mountains to fall upon them, and hide 
them from the face of the Lamb. Nor, as is 
so often the case with earthly officers, will any 
be able to elude the vigilance of these. They 
will be clothed with ample power to compel 
the attendance of all; none will escape. We 
must all appear before the judgment-seat. As 
in earthly courts, law is the basis of judgment, 
so we shall be judged according to law in that 
day. The heathen will be judged by the law of 



156 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

nature — the law written in their hearts, and on 
their consciences. The light of nature teaches 
the being, wisdom, power, and goodness of 
God. For a violation of this law, they will 
be beaten with few stripes. The Jews will be 
judged by both the law of nature, which they 
have, in common with the heathen and the 
Mosaic law. But we who live in the nineteenth 
century, in the full blaze of gospel light, will 
be judged not only by the light of nature 
and the Mosaic law, which we possess in com- 
mon with the heathen and the Jew, but also by 
the glorious gospel of the Son of God, which 
brought life and immortality to light ; and if 
condemned, how fearful our doom, who are so 
highly favoured ! In earthly courts, we are 
judged for our overt acts alone; but in the 
court of heaven, the commandment is exceed- 
ing broad; it reaches every thought. Our 
words, too, are taken into account. We must 
give an account for every idle word. By our 
words, we shall be justified, and by our words 
we shall be condemned. Our thoughts, our 
words, our deeds, will all be taken into 
account. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 157 

As in our courts there are witnesses, so 
also there will be at the bar of God. Our 
pious relatives and friends will bear this testi- 
mony, that they have prayed with us and for 
us ; that they had a deep concern for our souls, 
and that we who are found on the left hand 
of the Judge, refused all their counsel, and 
despised their admonitions. Ministers of the 
gospel will testify that they came as ambas- 
sadors from the King of kings, and beseeching 
you, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God, 
pointing to the coming wrath, and warning 
you from that wrath to flee; and yet their 
labour of love ye despised, and scorned the 
message from on high. The Bible will be 
a witness against you. Its teachings are able 
to make wise unto salvation. It is the chart 
which is given to guide us through this wilder- 
ness-world, to fairer worlds on high. It tells 
of the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin 
of the world. It is truth without any mixture 
of error, and yet you have despised this neces- 
sary revelation, and chosen to perish, with the 
Word of Life open before you. God, the 
14 



158 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

Father, will be a swift witness against you. In 
the greatness of his love for you, in the coun- 
sels of eternity, he devised the plan of salva- 
tion, and sent his only begotten Son to suffer 
and die, that you might live, and yet you have 
despised that love, and rejected that Saviour. 
God, the Son, will bear this testimony, that he 
came from the shining abodes of glory, where 
seraphim and cherubim fell prostrate at his feet, 
in humble adoration, and emptying himself of 
his glory, bore all the ills of life — the persecu- 
tions of wicked men, and the accursed death of 
the cross, that salvation might be yours, and 
yet ye refused it, and trod the blood of the 
Son of God under foot, and put him to an 
open shame. The Holy Spirit, the Third Per- 
son of the adorable Trinity, will bear witness 
that he often knocked at the door of your 
hearts for admittance; that he wooed you to 
embrace his love, offering to abide with you 
for ever, and yet you rejected the offer, and 
did despite to the Spirit of grace, till, in sor- 
row, he took his everlasting flight. 

The devil is now going about as a roaring 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 159 

lion, seeking whom he may devour, and some- 
times transforming himself into an angel of 
light. He is tempting you to sin, by present- 
ing before your minds the superior charms of 
the riches and pleasures of earth, to things that 
are unseen and eternal. He has no power to 
compel you to sin. His evil suggestions are 
whispered in your oft too willing ears, and 
then it remains with you to accept or reject. 
He has no power of compulsion. Your sin 
must be an act of your own will, or it is not 
sin. When you consent to the wiles of this 
arch enemy, and sin against God, remember 
that with eager desire and base ingratitude he 
will fiercely accuse in the great day of God 
Almighty, and urge these very sins of his 
suggestion as a reason why he should have 
you to torment you for ever in the bottomless 
pit. 

That internal monitor, that light which en- 
lightens every man that cometh into the world 
■ — the moral sense, or conscience — will be a 
swift witness against you. By it you have been 
enlightened and warned ; and in the case of 



160 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

many who have denied a future state of pun- 
ishment, the goadings of remorse have con- 
vinced them that there is a hell, the kindlings 
of whose fires they have felt in their own 
bosoms. Conscience will compel you to con- 
fess that your doom is just, though for ever 
debarred from the joys and happiness of hea- 
ven. O ! my fellow-prisoners and travellers to 
the bar of God, listen to her warning voice 
to-day, before it be too late, and you are com- 
pelled mournfully to exclaim, "The harvest is 
past, the summer is ended, and I am not 
saved!" The conscience of the sinner will be 
compelled to admit the truth of the testimony. 
In earthly courts, oftentimes witnesses are 
suborned, and their testimony false. Not so 
at the grand assize. Not a scrap of false testi- 
mony will be admitted. The evidence will be 
in truth, and the judgment in righteousness. 
After all these scenes have occurred, the 
Judge will render a verdict, and pronounce the 
sentence, which will be irreversible and eternal. 
With regard to the righteous, though they 
have been guilty of many sins, both of omis- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 161 

sion and commission, and have no merits of 
their own to plead, and consider themselves 
justly obnoxious to eternal banishment, their 
Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom, 
while in the flesh, they exercised a true and 
living faith, will now present them, clad in the 
white robes of his perfect righteousness, fault- 
less before his Father, and they will now hear 
the welcome plaudit, " Come ye blessed, inherit 
the kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world." But those on the left hand, 
who all their life rejected the mercy offered — 
the great salvation proffered without money 
and without price — will now hear the dread 
sentence, " Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels !" 

my dear, impenitent fellow-prisoners ! how 
can ye take up your abode, your eternal abode, 
in everlasting burnings? How can ye dwell 
with devouring fire? How can ye endure 
everlasting destruction from the presence of 
the Lord and the glory of his power, shut up 
for ever in the fearful pit out of which there is 
no egress except for the vision of the damned, 
14* 



162 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

and the smoke of its torment? Be wise to- 
day, 'tis madness to defer. Procrastination is 
the thief of time. Delay is fraught with awful 
danger. Trust not in promises of future 
amendment. The way to hell is paved with 
good resolutions, which are never kept. The 
future convenient season never arrives. Like 
Felix, we may tremble when the minister rea- 
sons of a judgment to come ; and like Agrippa, 
we may be almost persuaded to be a Christian, 
and yet come short of the glory of God through 
procrastination. Procrastination has populated 
hell. All the doomed and damned from Chris- 
tian lands are victims of this pernicious and 
destructive wile of the devil. It is foolish to 
procrastinate. Though the Bible teems with 
rich and glorious promises of a hundred-fold 
blessings in this life, and eternal glory in the 
world to come, to those who break off their 
sins by righteousness, and their transgressions 
by turning unto the Lord, yet all these pro- 
mises are limited to the present tense. There is 
not a single blessing promised the future peni- 
tent. He procrastinates at the risk of losing 



SLAVEKY AND SECESSION. 163 

all. Behold, now is the accepted time, and 
now is the day of salvation. To-day if ye 
will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. 
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, 
buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk with- 
out money and without price." " Seek ye first 
the kingdom of God and his righteousness." 
"And the Spirit and the Bride say, come; let 
him that heareth say, come; and let him that is 
athirst come: and whosoever will, let him take 
the water of life freely." 

Choose ye this clay whom ye will serve. 
There is no warrant for deferring till to-mor- 
row the momentous and eternal interests of the 
immortal soul. The shortness and uncertainty 
of life furnish a strong reason why we should 
not procrastinate. In the Bible, life is com- 
pared to everything that is swift, transient, and 
fleeting in its nature. It is compared to the 
swoop of the eagle hasting to the prey ; to the 
swift post, to the bubble on the river. Life is 
compared in its duration to a year, a day, and 
to nothing, yea, less than nothing, and vanity. 



164 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 

All these comparisons indicate that it is very 
brief and evanescent. We have no lease of 
life; we hold it by a very slight temire; and 
this is especially true of us in our present con- 
dition. Confined in prison, some of us led to 
death every day without a moment's warning, 
every evening I address some who, before the 
next evening, are in eternity. Myself in chains, 
my life declared forfeited, ought we not all to 
be deeply impressed with the necessity of imme- 
diate preparation to meet oar God? I feel that 
I am preaching as a dying man to dying men, 
and I beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye 
reconciled to God. Believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and ye shall be saved. Trust in him 
for salvation, for he is faithful who has pro- 
mised. God has never said to any, seek ye my 
face in vain. By the love and mercy of God, 
by the terrors of the judgment, by the sympa- 
thy and compassion of Jesus, I entreat you, my 
fellow-prisoners, to seek an interest, a present 
interest, in the great salvation ! 

I close for the present. We shall never all 
engage in divine service together again on 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 165 

earth. We separate — some to go to a distant 
prison, and some to death. May God grant 
that when we are done with earthly scenes, we 
may all meet in the realms of bliss, where there 
is in God's presence fulness of joy, and at his 
right hand pleasures for evermore! And may 
the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, 
rest and abide with us, and all the Israel of 
God, now, henceforth, and for ever, Amen ! 
The following hymn was then sung : 

In the sun, and moon, and stars, 
Signs and wonders there shall be; 

Earth shall quake with inward wars, 
Nations with perplexity. 

Soon shall ocean's hoary deep, 

Tossed with stronger tempests, rise; 

Wilder storms the mountains sweep, 
Louder thunders rock the skies. 

Dread alarms shall shake the proud, 

Pale amazement, restless fear; 
And, amid the thunder-cloud, 

Shall the Judge of men appear. 



166 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

But though from his awful face, 

Heaven shall fade, and earth shall fly, 

Fear not ye, his chosen race, 
Your redemption draweth nigh. 

I preached longer than I had intended, hav- 
ing become so fully engrossed with the subject 
as to forget my chains and my frustrated plans. 
My fellow-prisoners were listening apparently 
with interest; great solemnity prevailed, and 
penitential tears were flowing. It was evident 
that the Spirit of the living God was in our 
midst; and though danger and death were 
before our eyes, the consolations of the glorious 
gospel of the blessed God caused our peace 
to flow like a river. The precious seed was 
sown in tears. May we not entertain a good 
hope that he who cast the seed into this soil, 
prepared by affliction, shall come again with 
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. By 
my side stood two in chains, who appeared 
deeply moved. During the day I had con- 
versed with them about their souls. They 
expressed regret that they had not heretofore 
given this matter the attention its importance 



SLAVEKY AND SECESSION. 167 

demanded. Since their imprisonment, how- 
ever, they had been led to feel that they were 
great sinners, and had, as they hoped, put their 
trust in Christ alone for salvation. I have 
since learned that on the morrow they were 
shot. 



168 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 



CHAPTEK VI. 

SUCCESSFUL ESCAPE. 

The Second Plan of Escape — Under the Jail — Egress — 
Among the Guards — In the Swamp — Travelling on the 
Underground Railroad — The Fare — Green Corn eaten 
Raw — Blackberries and Stagnant Water — The Blood- 
hounds — Tantalizing Dreams — The Pickets — The Cows — 
Become Sick — Fons Beatus — Find Friends — Union Friend 
No. Two — The night in the Barn — Death of Newman by 
Scalding — Union Friend No. Three — Bound for the Union 
Lines — Rebel Soldiers — Black Ox — Pied Ox — Reach 
Headquarters in Safety — Emotions on again beholding 
the Old Flag — Kindness while Sick — Meeting with his 
Family — Richard Malone again — The Serenade — Leave 
Dixie — Northward bound. 

After' the sermon was concluded, the prepara- 
tions for my escape were commenced. The 
building used for our prison was built with the 
front toward the east. The doors were at the 
eastern and western extremities, which were 
the gable ends, one door being in each end. 
There were also two windows at each end, the 
door being between them. The doors and 
window-sashes had been removed, to allow the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 169 

guards stationed in front an unobstructed view 
of the interior. At night the apartment was 
lighted, and a guard patrolled the floor ; it was, 
therefore, nearly impossible for a .person to 
escape the observation of the guards, either 
within or without the jail. In the North, the 
houses are usually built with a cellar under- 
neath; at the South, such a thing is very rare, 
the houses being built upon the ground, or 
upon piles. Our prison was built upon piles, 
the floor being elevated about eighteen inches 
above the ground. The boards were nailed 
upon the building perpendicularly, and in some 
cases did not quite reach to the ground. Small 
openings were thus left between the floor and 
the ground, through which a person could 
crawl underneath the building. Around each 
door was an enclosure, formed by stakes sur- 
mounted with poles, in the shape of a parallelo- 
gram, whose dimensions were about ten by 
sixteen feet. In each of these enclosures four 
guards were stationed, one of them being 
seated in the doorway. The rear enclosure 
was used for cooking purposes ; and into both 
15 



170 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

enclosures we were permitted to go at pleasure 
during all hours of the day, and as late at 
night as ten o'clock. Only three prisoners 
were allowed to be in an enclosure at one time. 

M had discovered a hole by the side of 

the steps within the front enclosure, by which 
I could get under the building. I felt unwil- 
ling to make such an attempt, as the aperture 
was in the immediate vicinity of the guards. 

M stated that four others would aid me, 

though at considerable risk on their part. 
"I'll take the risk," was the individual response 

of all present. M selected three, who with 

himself assumed the perilous task, in which 
discovery would have cost them their lives. 

M , who had devised the plan of escape, 

now instructed us in the respective parts we 
were to perform. All promised implicit obe- 
dience. At half-past nine, three prisoners and 
myself were to. go into the enclosure. They 
would stand up and converse with the guards, 
whilst I sat upon the ground by the hole, to 
wait for an opportunity to crawl under the 
building unobserved. This opportunity we 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 171 

expected to occur at ten o'clock, when the 
relief- guard came on duty. The duty of one 
prisoner Avas to remain inside and engage the 
attention of the guard who sat in the door- 
way, while the other three would go into the 
enclosure, and entertain the other guards, 
according to the previously devised plan. At 
half-past nine o'clock, we placed ourselves in 
the designated positions. I readily removed 
my chain, coiled it up, and laid it by the side 
of a little stump. The moon shone with great 
brilliancy, revealing the tents which surrounded 
us on every side. Officers and soldiers passed 
hurriedly to and fro. We were in the midst of 
the noise and confusion of a great encampment, 
as there were in and around Tupelo some 
fifteen thousand soldiers. Mingled sounds of 
mirth and contention proceeded from the sur- 
rounding tents. My prisoner friends were 
engaged in a fierce argument with the guards 
as to the comparative merits of Tennessee and 
Mississippi troops. This was done to divert 
their attention, and I observed with pleasure 
that they were meeting with success. I reflected 



172 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



that a few more moments would decide my 
fate. If detected, jny life must end ignomini- 
ously and on the gallows. In the morning, 
my anklets would be securely welded. I would 
also be handcuffed and chained to a post. Then 
all hope must end, and soon my corpse would 
be borne into the presence of her whose tears 
were flowing, and who refused to be com- 
forted because of my ominous absence. 

The order for the relief-guard now came loud 
and clear. I heard their hurried tramp, and 
saw their glittering bayonets in the bright 
moonlight. The set time, the appointed mo- 
ment, big with my fate, had arrived. I offered 
an ejaculatory prayer to Him who sits upon 
the throne of heaven for protection at this 
critical moment. The guard stood within ten 
feet of me, with their eyes constantly upon 
me. Just as they were turning to receive the 
advancing relief-guard, I crawled backward 
under the building, and disappeared from their 
view. The relief-guard went on duty, and 
those relieved retired. The prisoners were 
ordered into the house, and as the new guards 



. 




SLAVERY AND SECESSION. l<o 

did not know that four were in the enclosure, 
I was not missed. 

I was now under the prison, but there were 
guards on every side, and the jail was in the 
midst of a camp, so that I was still in great 
danger of detection. I saw, through the 
crevices in the floor, the guard who patrolled 
the prison. I heard the murmurings and mut- 
terings of the prisoners, as he occasionally trod 
upon them in his carelessness. I could hear, 
though not distinctly, the conversation of the 
prisoners. One of my assistants was detailing 
to his companions their success in getting me 
off unnoticed. The prisoners slept but little 
that night, owing to their anxiety for my 
safety, and I frequently heard my name men- 
tioned, and hopes for my safety expressed. I 
occasionally fell into uneasy slumbers, but the 
fleas and other vermin were so annoying, that 
my sleep refreshed me but little. I could dis- 
tinctly hear the new guard conversing, and 
among other topics, one remarked that he had 
forgotten the countersign ; the other replied that 
it was Braxton. Well, said the former, I thought 
15* 



17-1 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

it was Bragg, or Braxton, or something like that. 
Knowing the countersign emboldened me, as I 
could, if halted, give it, and pass on. I soon 
crawled to the north side of the prison, and 
found that there were three apertures sufficiently 
large to admit of my egress. Upon reaching 
the first one, I found a number of guards, some 
sitting and some lying so close to it, that I 
dared not make the attempt at that point. 

Crawling to the second, I remained till there 
was comparative quiet; but at the instant I 
was about to pass out, a soldier, who was lying 
with his face toward me, commenced to cough, 
and continued to do so, at intervals, for more 
than an hour. Finding it unadvisable to run 
the risk of detection at this point, I made my 
way, with considerable difficulty, to the third, 
and last aperture, near the rear of the building, 
and not very distant from the rear-guards. I 
remained at this aperture till I heard one guard 
say to another that it was three o'clock, and 
that they must soon go on duty. I felt confi- 
dent that then was my time, or never, as 
morning would find me under the house, and 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 175 

I would be re-arrested in that situation. Com- 
mitting myself into the hands of God, and 
asking him to keep me from detection, and 
grant me a safe escape, I arose from under the 
building, passed by two sleeping guards, who 
were lying within three or four feet of the 
prison. As it was my first essay at walking 
without chains, I reeled, as if under the influ- 
ence of strong drink, striking my foot against 
the head of one of those sleeping guards, who, 
awaking, turned over, and uttering some excla- 
mation of disapprobation, took no further notice 
of me, doubtless mistaking me for one of his 
companions. After proceeding a few steps, I 
sat down upon the ground among some of the 
guards. I took out my knife, and whistling, 
to appear as unconcerned as possible, com- 
menced whittling a stump, around which they 
were collected — some sitting, some standing, 
and others reclining. I readily passed for 
one of them, as I was wearing a colored shirt, 
which resembled that worn by the guards. I 
soon, however, arose, and wound my way 
among the various groups, endeavouring to 



176 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

reach, the corn-field, to which I had made my 
first escape. After passing the guards off' duty, 
a sentinel arose a short distance in front of me, 
evidently with, the intention of halting me, if I 
advanced farther. Stopping a few minutes, to 
avoid suspicion, I changed my direction, bear- 
ing southwest, and after a time, got into the 
woods. Kneeling down, I returned God thanks 
for thus crowning my efforts with success, and 
prayed for his continuous protection, and that 
he would choose out my path, that I might 
escape detection, and rejoin my family and 
friends in safety. 

I now pursued my journey rapidly in a 
southwest direction, choosing that which led 
directly from my home, for two reasons. The 
cavalry and bloodhounds would not be so 
likely to follow in that direction, and after 
listening, while in prison, to the drum-beat 
morning and evening, in the various sur- 
rounding camps, I noticed that it had ceased 
in the southwest for several mornings ; hence I 
supposed that the camp in that direction had 
been broken up, and that, in taking that route, 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 177 

I could more readily get beyond the rebel 
pickets, and then I could change my course, 
and bear northward, and reach the Federal 
lines at some point on the Memphis and 
Charleston railroad. I hastened on till the sun 
arose, having passed through woods and corn- 
fields, studiously avoiding all roads, when, as 
I was rapidly travelling along a narrow path, 
I met a negro. The suddenness of our meeting 
alarmed both. I, in a peremptory tone, ad- 
dressed him, in quick succession, the following 
interrogatories : 

"Where are you going? To whom do you 
belong ? "Where have you been ? Have you 
a pass ?" 

"I belong," said the boy, trembling, "to 

Mr. . I have been to wife's house; am 

gwine back home, but I haint got nary 

pass." 

"I suppose it is all right with you?" 
"Oh, yes, master! it's all right wid me." 
Concluding that it was not all right "wid" 
myself, I hurried on, soon leaving the path, 
and turning into a dense woods. Travelling 



178 TH.1 IKON FURNACE; OR 

on till about one P. M., I came to an open 
country, so extensive that I could not go round 
it, neither could I, in daylight, travel through 
it with safety. I sought out a place to hide, 
and finding a ditch which bisected a corn-field, 
I concealed myself in that. During the day; 
negroes and whites passed near, without dis- 
covering me. Becoming hungry, I ate a small 
piece of the bread which one of my fellow- 
prisoners had given me, but it made me quite 
sick. On my former escape, I had, just before 
leaving the house, traded pants with a fellow- 
prisoner, without his knowledge or consent. 
On my return, he refused to trade back. My 
reason for trading was, to get a dark pair, as 
mine were so light-coloured, I feared the guards 
would discover me more readily. Their owner 
had been accustomed to use tobacco, and the 
bread had become tinctured with it. Tobacco 
being very offensive to me, its presence on my 
bread caused me to lose it. 

The day passed away, and the night came. 
The stars came out in silent glory, one by one. 
Fixing my eye upon the pole-star, the under- 



SLAVERY AXD SECESSION. 179 

ground railroad travellers' guide, I set out, 
bearing a little to the west of north. I soon 
reached the thick woods, and found it very 
difficult to make rapid progress, in consequence 
of the dense under- growth and obscure light. 
The bushes would strike me in the eyes, and 
often the top of a fallen tree would cause me 
to make quite a circuit. Soon, however, the 
moon arose in her brightness — the old silver 
moon. But her light I found to be far less 
brilliant than that of the sun, and her rays 
were much obscured by the dense foliage over- 
head ; hence my progress was necessarily slow, 
laboured, and toilsome. I slept but little during 
the day, in consequence of the proximity of 
those who might be bitter foes, and also 
the unpleasant position I occupied, as the ditch 
in which I had concealed myself was muddy, 
and proved an uncomfortable bed. I therefore 
became weary, my limbs stiff from travel and 
from the pressure of the heavy iron bands. 
Sleep overpowered me, and I laid down 
in the leaves, and slept till the cold awoke 
me, which, judging from the moon's descent, 



180 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

must have been an hour and a half. The 
nights in Mississippi are invariably cool, how- 
ever hot the days may be. Arising from my 
uneasy slumber, I pressed on. My thirst, which 
for some time had been increasing, now became 
absolutely unendurable. I knew not where to 
obtain water, not daring to go near a well, 
through fear of being arrested. At length I 
heard some suckling pigs and their dam, at a 
short distance from me, in the woods. There 
seemed to be no alternative. I must either 
perish, or obtain some fluid to slake my raging 
thirst; so I resolved to catch a little pig, cut 
its throat, and drink the blood. I searched for 
my knife, but I had lost it. I was, therefore, 
reluctantly compelled to abandon my design 
on the suckling's life. As I went forward, the 
sow and her brood started up alarmed, and in 
their flight, plunged into water. I immediately 
followed, and found a mud-hole. Kemoving 
the green scum, I drank deep of the stagnant 
pool. My thirst was only partially quenched 
by this draught, and soon returned. As day 
dawned, I found some sassafras leaves, which. 



SLAVEKY AND SECESSION. 181 

I chewed, to allay the pangs of hunger ; but 
they formed a paste which I could not swallow. 
I soon after came to an old field, where I 
obtained an abundant supply of blackberries, 
which not only served to check the gnawings 
of hunger, but also to allay my intolerable 
thirst. I reflected that this day was the holy 
Sabbath, but it brought neither rest to my 
weary frame, nor composure to my agitated and 
excited mind. Like Salathiel, the Wandering 
Jew, the word March! was ringing in my ears. 
Onward ! was my motto ; Liberty or death ! my 
watchword. About ten o'clock I came to an 
open country, and sought out a ditch, in which 
to conceal myself. Here I fell into a troubled 
sleep. I saw, in dreams, tables groaning under 
the weight of the most delicious viands, and 
brooks of crystal waters, bubbling and spark- 
ling as they rushed onward in their meandering 
course; but when I attempted to grasp them, 
they served me as they did Tantalus, of olden 
time, by vanishing into thin air, or receding 
beyond my reach. While lying here, I was 
now and then aroused by the trampling of 
16 



182 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

horses grazing in the field, which I feared 
might be bringing on my pursuers. And once 
the voices of men, mingled with the sounds of 
horses' feet upon a little bridge, some twenty 
feet distant, induced me to look out from my 
hiding-place, and lo! two cavalry-men — per- 
haps hunting for my life ! — rode along. 

When the sun had reached the zenith, I 
was again startled by voices, which approached 
nearer and nearer my place of concealment, till 
at length the cause was discovered. Several 
children, both black and white, had come from 
a farm-house, about a quarter, of a mile distant, 
to gather blackberries along the margin of the 
ditch. They soon discovered me, and seemed 
somewhat startled and alarmed at my appear- 
ance. I soon saw them gazing down upon me, 
in my moist bed, with evident amazement and 
alarm. Pallid, haggard, unshaven, and covered 
with mud, I must have presented a frightful 
picture. 

As soon as the children passed me, fearing 
the report they would carry home, I arose 
from my lair, and hurried on, though I had to 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 183 

pass in sight of several houses. After travel- 
ling three or four miles through an open 
champaign country, I came to a dense woods, 
bordering a stream which had ceased running, 
in consequence of the great drought that had, 
for a long time, prevailed throughout this sec- 
tion of Mississippi. The creek had been a 
large one, and in the deep holes, some water 
still remained, though warm, and covered with 
a heavy scum, and mingled with the spawn 
of frogs. I drank it, however, from sheer 
necessity, tepid and unhealthy as it was. It 
did not allay my thirst, but created a nausea, 
which was very unpleasant. 

About four o'clock P. M., I was startled by 
the baying of bloodhounds behind me, and 
apparently on my track. Before escaping from 
jail, I had been advised by the prisoners to 
obtain some onions, as these, rubbed on the 
soles of my boots, would destroy the scent. 
They could only be procured, however, by a 
visit to some garden-patch, and I feared to go 
so near a house. I had left no clothes in prison 
from which the hounds could obtain the scent in 



184 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

order to find my track, and my starting in a 
southwest direction was an additional precau- 
tion against bloodhounds. Their baying soon 
became alarmingly distinct. Having heard them 
almost every night for years, as they hunted 
down the fugitive slave, I could not mistake 
the fearful import of their howling. I could 
devise no plan for breaking the trail. Dan 
Boone, when pursued by Indians, succeeded in 
baffling the hounds by catching at some over- 
hanging branches, and swinging himself for- 
ward. Negroes often destroy the scent by 
carrying matches, and setting the leaves on fire. 
One negro of whom I heard, ran along the 
brink of a precipice, and dug a recess back 
from the narrow path. Crawling into it, he 
remained till the hounds reached that point, 
when he thrust them from the path. They fell 
and were dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks 
below. 

None of these plans were practicable to me, 
and I supposed death imminent, either from 
being torn to pieces by the hounds, or by being 
shot by the cavalry, who were following them. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 185 

Climbing a tree, I resolved to await the arrival 
of the cavalry, and having determined to die 
rather than be taken back again to Tupelo, I 
would refuse to obey any summons to descend. 
0, how I wished for my navy repeater, that I 
might sell my life as dearly as possible! that 
I might make some secessionist bite the dust 
ere I was slain ! I often thought of the couplet 
in the old song — 

" The hounds are baying on my track, 
Christian, will you send me back?" 

A feeling of strong sympathy arose in my 
bosom for the poor African, who, in his endea- 
vour to escape from the Iron Furnace of 
Southern slavery, often encountered the blood- 
hounds, and was torn to pieces by them. " A 
fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind." 

I had remained but a short time in the tree, 
when I ascertained that the hounds were bear- 
ing eastward, and they soon passed at a dis- 
tance. They were on the track of some other 
poor fugitive, and I rejoiced again in the hope 
of safety. Coming to a corn-field, I plucked 
16* 



186 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

two ears of corn, and ate them raw, having no 
matches wherewith to kindle a fire, which, 
indeed, would have increased my peril, as the 
smoke might advertise my presence to bitter 
and unrelenting foes. 

Toward night I lay down in the woods, and 
fell asleep. Visions of abundance, both to eat 
and drink, haunted me, and every unusual 
sound would startle me. A fly peculiar to the 
South, whose buzz sounded like the voice of an 
old man, often awoke me with the fear that 
my enemies were near. As soon as Ursa 
Minor appeared, I took up my line of march. 
The night was very dark, and I became some- 
what bewildered. At length I reached a cross- 
roads, and as I was emerging from the wood, 
I saw two pickets a few yards from me. 
Stooping down, I crawled on my hands and 
knees back into the woods. As I retired, I 
heard one picket say to the other, "Who is 
that?" 

He replied, "It is the lieutenant of the 
guard." 

"What does he want?" said the first. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 187 

"He is slipping round to see if we are 
asleep." 

After I got a safe distance in the bushes, I 
lay down and slept till the moon arose. To 
the surprise of my bewildered brain, it seemed 
to rise in the west. Taking my course, I has- 
tened on, sometimes through woods, sometimes 
through cornfields, and sometimes through 
swamps. Coming to a large pasture, in which 
a number of cows were grazing, I tried to 
obtain some milk, but none of them would 
allow me to approach near enough to effect 
my purpose. My face was not of the right 
colour, and my costume belonged to a sex 
that never milked them. I travelled until 
day-break, when I concealed myself in a 
thicket of cane, and had scarcely fallen asleep 
when I heard the sound of the reveille, in a 
camp close at hand. Arising, I hurriedly beat 
a retreat, and travelled several hours before I 
dared take any rest. I at length lay down 
amid the branches of a fallen tree, and slept. 
Visions of home and friends flitted before me. 
Voices sweet and kind greeted me on all 



188 THE IKON furnace; or 

sides. The bitter taunts of cruel officers no 
longer assailed my ears. The loved ones at 
home were present, and the joys of the past 
were renewed. But, alas ! the falling of a limb 
dissipated all my fancied pleasures. The real- 
ity returned, and I was still a fugitive escaping 
for life, and in the midst of a hostile country. 

To-day my mock trial would have taken 
place, and I fancied the disappointment of 
Woodruff, who had stated that to his know- 
ledge I was a spy, and to-day would have 
sworn it. And Barnes, the mail-robber, recom- 
mended for promotion because of his heroism 
in re-arresting me, how sad he must feel, that 
the bird had flown, and that he would not have 
the pleasure of witnessing my execution. I 
thanked God and took courage. Though faint 

o o 

and weary, I was still hopeful and trusting, 

often repeating, 

"'Tis God has led me safe thus far, 
And he will bring me home." 

On this (Monday) night, I travelled steadily, 
crossing swamps, corn-fields, woods, and pas- 
tures. I came to only one cotton-field dur- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 189 

ing the night. I passed through several 
wheat-fields, where the wheat had been har- 
vested; I pulled a handful from a shock, and 
rubbed out some of the grain, but it was so 
bitter I could not eat it. I suspected every 
bush a secessionist, though I felt much more 
secure at night than in daylight. I avoided 
roads as much as possible, travelling on none 
except to cross them, which was done with 
great rapidity. The rising sun still found me 
pressing onward, and thirst and hunger were 
now consuming me. To satisfy hunger, I had 
recourse to the corn-field; but I could find no 
water. I would gladly have drank any kind 
of beverage, however filthy, so that my thirst 
might be allayed. About nine o'clock, when I 
had almost despaired of getting water at all, I 
came to a copious fountain in a gorge of the 
hills, and from its appearance, I seemed to be 
the discoverer. Around it there was no trace of 
human foot, nor hoof of cattle. On beholding 
it, I wept with joy. I remained by it about four 
hours, quaffing its cool and crystal waters, the 
first running water I had tasted since leaving 



190 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

prison. I also bathed my body and washed 
my clothes, drying them in the sun, and endea- 
voured to rid them of vermin, in which I only 
partially succeeded. I named this fountain 
Fons Beatus, and left it with sincere sorrow. 

Three o'clock, P. M., arrived, and I felt 
bewildered. I knew not where I was. I might 
be near friends, I might be near bloodthirsty 
foes. I could scarcely walk. My iron bands 
had become very irksome. I felt that I was 
becoming childish. I could tell all my bones. 
I tried to pray, but could only utter, "Lord, be 
merciful to me, a sinner !" Still I felt thankful 
that it was so well with me as it was. 

At that very hour, had I not escaped, I 
should have been either on the scaffold at 
Tupelo, or suspended between heaven and 
earth, surrounded by an insulting and jeer- 
ing army. This reflection made me thank- 
ful to God, even though I should die in the 
swamps. The sky became overcast, and I 
found it impossible to distinguish north from 
south. I therefore concealed myself and slept. 
It was night when I awoke, and the clouds still 



SLAVEKY AND SECESSION. 191 

covered the sky threateningly, concealing my 
guiding star, and rendering it impossible for 
me to proceed. Thus, when I wished most to 
go forward, my progress was arrested, and my 
distressing suspense prolonged. During the 
whole night I was asleep and awake alter- 
nately, but could not at any time discern either 
moon or stars. Once, while sleeping behind a 
fallen tree by the roadside, a horseman passed 
by. His dog, a large and ferocious-looking 
animal, came running along by the side of the 
tree where I was lying. When he reached me, 
I raised up suddenly * and brandishing a club 
menacingly, the alarmed and howling dog 
incontinently and ingloriously fled, leaving me 
master of the field. 

On Wednesday morning the sun was still 
obscured until nine o'clock. I was then sick. 
There was a ringing in my ears, and I was 
affected with vertigo, a dimness of vision and 
faintness, which rendered me absolutely unfit 
for travel. It required an hour to walk a 
quarter of a mile. I found a good supply of 
blackberries, which very much refreshed me. 



192 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 



Before me was a hill, the top of which I reached 
after two hours' laborious ascent. I despaired 
of getting much further. I thought I must 
perish in the Iron Furnace of secession, which 
was heated very hot for me. Feeling confident 
that I must be near Tippah county, and know- 
ing that there were many Union men in that 
county, I resolved to call at the first house on 
my route. If I remained where I was, I must 
perish, as I could go no further, and if I met 
with a Union family, I should be saved ; if with 
" a secesh," I might possibly impose upon their 
credulity, and get refreshment without being 
arrested. They might, however, cause my arrest. 
It was a dilemma such as I hope never to be 
placed in again. About an hour before sunset 
I came to a house, and remained near it for 
some time. At length I saw a negro girl come 
to the door. Knowing that where there were 
negroes, in nine cases out of ten there were 
secessionists near, I left the house as quickly 
as my enfeebled condition would permit. Going 
to another house, I remained near it till I was 
satisfied there were no negroes held by that 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION". 193 

family. I then went boldly up, knocked, 
gained admittance, and asked for some water, 
which, was given me. The lady of the house, 
scrutinizing me closely, asked me if I were from 
Tupelo. I replied in the affirmative. She then 
inquired my name. I gave her my Christian 
name, John Hill, suppressing the surname. Her 
husband was sitting near, a man of Herculean 
frame; and as the wife's inquisitiveness was 
beginning to alarm me, I turned to him and 
said: "My friend, you are a man of great 
physical powers, and at this time you ought to 
be in the army. The Yankees are overrunning 
all our country, and the service of every man 
is needed." His wife replied that he was not in 
the army, nor would he go into it, unless he 
was forced to go. They had been told that the 
cavalry would be after him in a few days, to 
take him as a conscript ; but she considered the 
conscript law, base and tyrannical. Overjoyed 
at the utterance of such sentiments as these, I 
then revealed my true character. I told them 
that I had recently made my escape from 
Tupelo, where I was doomed to execution on 
17 



194: THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

the gallows, and that I was now flying from 
prison and from death. I then exhibited the 
iron bands upon my ankles. Both promised all 
the aid in their power. The lady at once pro- 
posed to prepare supper, but I was too near the 
point of starvation to await the slow process of 
cooking. She therefore turned down the table- 
cloth, which covered the fragments remaining 
from dinner, and disclosed some corn bread 
and Irish potatoes. Though I never liked corn 
bread, I must confess I thought that was the 
sweetest morsel J had ever tasted. 

After eating a little, however, I became very 
sick, and was compelled to desist. It was so 
long since I had partaken of any substantial 
food, that my stomach now could not bear it. 
The lady soon prepared supper, consisting of 
broiled chicken, and other delicacies. The 
fowl was quite small, and I ate nearly the 
whole of it, much to the chagrin of a little 
daughter of mine host, whom I heard com- 
plaining to her mother, afterward, in an adjoin- 
ing room, saying, "Ma, all I got of that chicken 
was a little piece of the wing," and "aint that 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 1 ( J5 

gentleman a hoss to eat ?" with other remarks 
by no means complimentary to my voracious 
appetite. 

After supper, mine host endeavoured to 
remove the heavy iron bands by which my 
ankles were clasped. This was accomplished 
after considerable labour. I asked him to 
retain the bands till called for, which he pro- 
mised to do. The good lady furnished me with 
water and a suit of her husband's clothes. After 
performing a thorough ablution, I donned the 
suit, and felt completely metamorphosed, and 
was thoroughly disguised, as my new suit 
had been made for" a man of vastly larger 
physical proportions. I spent the night with 
my new friends, during which a heavy 
thunder-storm passed over. Had I been out 
in the drenching rain in my wretched con- 
dition, I must surely have perished. In the 
morning my host informed me of a Union 
man who knew the country in the direction of 
llienzi, the point which I now determined to 
reach. This gentleman lived half a mile dis- 
tant, and my host accompanied me to a thicket 



196 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

near his house, where I concealed myself till he 

brought Mr. to me. Said my friend No. 2, 

"I am not familiar with the route to Rienzi, 
but will go with you to friend No. 3, who I am 
positive is well acquainted with the road. He 
can take you through the woods, so as to avoid 
the Confederate cavalry. As I undertake this 
at the risk of my life, we must wait till night. 
I would gladly have you come to my house, 
but I fear that it might transpire through my 
children that I had helped you to escape. I 
have a large family, and most of 'em is gals, 
and you know gals will talk. You can stay in 
my barn till I come for you. I will carry you 
provisions during the day, and to-night we will 
go to my friend's." 

About three o'clock in the morning, he came 
with two horses, one of which he mounted, and 
I the other. The horse I rode was a blooded 
animal, and to use my friend's expression, could 
run like a streak of lightning. I provided 
myself with a good whip, resolving, in case of 
danger, to put my horse to his utmost speed. 
A short time after daylight, we reached friend 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 197 

No. 3, who promised to conduct me to Eienzi. 
While at his house, I learned that a Unionist, 

Mr. N , had been killed under circumstances 

of the greatest cruelty. His sentiments had 
become known to the rebels. He was arrested 
by their cavalry, and refusing to take the oath, 
they resolved to put him to death on the spot. 
He had a large family of small children, who, 
together with his wife, begged that his life 
might be spared. He himself had no favours 
to ask of the secessionists. Among his foes, 
the only point of dispute was, as to the mode 
of his death. Some favoured shooting, some 
hanging ; but the prevailing majority were in 
favour of scalding him to death. And there, 
in the presence of his weeping and helpless 
family, these fiends in human form deliberately 
heated water, with which they scalded to death 
tlieir chained and defenceless victim. Thus 
perished a patriot of whom the State was 
not worthy. The corpse was then suspended 
from a tree, with a label on the breast, stating 
that whoever cut him down and buried him, 
should suffer the same fate. My companions 
17* 



198 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 

cut down the corpse by night, and buried it 
in the forest. May God reward them I 

My friend No. 3 thought that it would be 
best to travel in daylight. He could follow 
by-paths, and avoid the rebel cavalry. We 
started about eight o'clock on Friday morning, 
and met with no incident worth narrating until 
we reached a mill ; here we fell in with some 
six or seven rebel soldiers, who had been out 
on sick furlough, and were returning. They 
scanned us closely, and inquired whence we 
came, and whither bound. My friend specified 
a neighbourhood from which he affirmed we 
came, and stated that we were hunting stray 
oxen, asking whether they had seen a black 
ox and a pied ox in their travels. They 
replied in the negative; and in turn asked 
him who I was. He replied that I was his 
wife's brother, who had come from Alabama 
about three months ago. They said I looked 
like "death on a pale hoss," and wished to 
know what was the matter with me — if I were 
consumptive. My friend replied that I had had 
the chills for several months ; and as there was 



SLAVEEY AND SECESSION. 199 

no quinine in the country, it was impossible to 
stop them. 

During this inquisition, I was ready at any 
moment to put spur to my horse, and run a 
race for life, had any attempt been made to 
arrest me, or if I had been recognised by any 
of the soldiers. We were, however, permitted 
to pass on, not without some suspicious glances. 
We at length reached a point ten miles from 
Kienzi. My guide now insisted on return- 
ing. It would be morning ere he reached 
home, and if met by cavalry, he must invent 
some plausible excuse for having a led horse. 
Nor did he dare return by the same route. 
Knowing the country, I permitted him to 
return. I then set out on foot, and at length 
reached the Federal pickets, three miles from 
Rienzi, where a horse was furnished me; and 
about ten o'clock I reached the head-quarters 
of Colonel Misner in Rienzi. When I gazed 
upon the star-spangled banner, beneath whose 
ample folds there was safety and protection — • 
when I saw around me the Union hosts — I 
shed tears of joy, and from the depths of my 



200 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

heart returned thanks to Almighty God, who 
had given me my life at my request, preserving 
me, amid dangers seen and unseen, till I now 
was safe amid hosts of friends. 

Colonel Misner requested me to report all 
that would be of service to General Bosecrans, 
which I did, he copying my report as I gave it. 
I reported, so far as I was informed, the proba- 
ble number of troops in and around Tupelo, 
the topography of the country, the probable 
designs of the rebels, the number of troops 
sent to Kichmond under Beauregard, &c. The 
Colonel requested me to go with him to head- 
quarters in the morning ; but at the hour speci- 
fied I was sick, and my physician, Dr. Holley, 
of the Thirty -sixth Illinois, thought it would 
not be advisable for me to go, even in an 
ambulance. My report, however, was carried 
up to General Eosecrans. 

Through proper treatment I recovered in a 
few days, so as to be able to go into Jacinto, 
the nearest point in the Federal lines to my 
family. I called on General Jefferson C. Davis, 
who was in command of that post. The General 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 201 

had heard of my arrest, and expressed gratifica- 
tion at my safe return. I informed him of my 
desire to get my family within the lines. The 
General immediately proffered me all the caval- 
ry at his command, and ordered them to pre- 
pare for the expedition. I thankfully accepted 
his kind offer, but after reflection concluded to 
send a messenger first, with a letter to my 
wife; if he were not intercepted, I knew that 
she would come in as soon as possible. The 
order to the cavalry was countermanded until 
this plan would be tried. The messenger was 
not intercepted, and on the next day I had the 
pleasure of beholding my wife and child, whose 
faces, a short time before, I had given up all 
hope of ever beholding on earth. 

While here, I called on my friend, Lieuten- 
ant Richard Malone, who resides in Jacinto. 
On inquiring at his house for him, he heard 
my voice, and ran out to the gate to meet me. 
Grasping my hand, he could not for some time 
control his emotions so as to speak. 

Malone gave me his history since we had 
parted at the outer wall of the prison. He 



202 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

reached the corn-field at the point designated, 
and anxiously awaited my arrival until near 
daylight, when he was compelled to seek safety 
in flight. We had agreed to meet in the corn- 
field at a place where there was a garment sus- 
pended upon the fence. We think there must 
have been two garments suspended at different 
points, and hence our mistake. We could not 
signal loud in consequence of the nearness of 
the pickets, and therefore did not meet. Soon 
after daylight, Malone found himself in the 
midst of a cavalry company which had en- 
camped there during the night; they were 
making preparations for departure, and the 
majority of them were gathering blackberries. 
Joining them, he passed as a citizen, and when 
he reached the rear of the company, he gath- 
ered some sticks in his arms, and started 
towards a small cabin at a short distance, as if 
it were his residence. Before reaching it, he 
made a detour to the right, and passed into the 
dense woods. On the next day, about ten 
o'clock, A. M., he reached an open champaign 
country, through which it would have been 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 203 

dangerous to travel. To the west, about three 
hundred yards distant, was a dense woods, 
which he hoped to reach without detection. 
While travelling down a road for this purpose, 
four cavalrymen who were in pursuit dashed 
towards him, and ordered him to return with 
them to Tupelo. Malone replied, that as it 
was useless to resist, he must submit. He 
asked for some water; they had none in their 
Ganteens, but went to a house in the dis- 
tance to obtain some. Malone was ordered 
to march before them, which he was com- 
pelled to do, though famishing from hunger 
and thirst. On reaching the house, they all 
went to the well and drew a bucket of water. 
There being no dipper, Malone remarked that 
he would go into the house and get one. 
One of -the guards followed, and stationed 
himself at the door with his gun. Malone 
went into the house, and immediately passed 
out at the back door. The garden gate being 
open, he passed into the garden, when he 
commenced running. Two women in the 
house noticed his running, and clapping their 



204 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

hands exclaimed, " Your Yankee's gone ! Your 
Yankee's gone!" The guards immediately 
followed, ordering him to halt, and firing at 
him with their revolvers. Malone quickly 
reached a corn-field, and soon after a swamp, 
whence he made good his escape, and after 
various vicissitudes reached his family in 
Jacinto, where I now found him. 

I returned to Bienzi with my family, re- 
solved to leave for the North. My wife, before 
leaving her father's, learned, through a letter 
sent by a rebel oificer to his wife, that all the 
guards who were on duty during the night I 
escaped from prison, were placed under close 
arrest, and were still in the dungeon at the 
time of his writing. There were eleven guards 
on each relief, and three reliefs during the 
night ; there were, therefore, thirty-three guards 
placed under arrest because of my escape. 

On the night previous to our departure from 
Rienzi, we were honoured with a serenade, 
through the politeness of General Granger, of 
the cavalry, and Colonel Bryner, of the Forty- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 205 

seventh Illinois Regiment. Being called on for 
a speech, I thus responded : 

Gentlemen — I return you sincere thanks for 
the honour intended myself and family. In 
the language of the last tune played by your 
band, I truly feel at " home again," and it fills 
my soul with joy to meet my friends once 
more. What a vast difference a few miles 
makes ! Tupelo is about forty miles south of 
Rienzi, on an air-line. There I was regarded 
as a base ingrate, as a despicable traitor, as an 
enemy to the country, chained as a felon, 
doomed to die, and before the execution of the 
sentence, subjected to every species of insult 
and contumely. Here I meet with the kindest 
expressions of sympathy from officers of all 
ranks, from the subaltern to the general, and 
there is not a private soldier who has heard my 
tale of woe, who does not manifest a kindly 
sympathy. 

I hope that you will soon pass south of 
Tupelo ; but in your march to the Gulf, may 
you fare better than I did in my journey to 
18 



206 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

tins place. Green corn eaten raw, berries, 
and stagnant water, would soon cause you to 
present the emaciated appearance that I do. On 
your route, call upon the secession sympathiz- 
ers, and compel them to furnish you with better 
and more substantial food. My horse I left at 
Tupelo. He is a valuable animal. The rebel 
General Hardee, in the true spirit of secession, 
appropriated — that is, stole — him. However, I 
did not call to demand him when I left. Being 
in haste, I did not choose to spare the time, and 
leaving in the night, I did not wish to disturb 
the slumbers of the Tupelonians. He is a 
bright bay. If you meet with him, you may 
have him for nothing. I would much prefer 
that he serve the Federal army. 

If you take General Jordan prisoner, send 
me word, and I will furnish you with the iron 
bands that he put on me, by which you may 
secure him till he meets the just award of his 
crimes, which would be death, for destroying 
the lives of so many Union men. 

I hope that you may soon plant the stars and 
stripes on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 207 

play the "Star-spangled Banner" within hear- 
ing of its vertiginous billows, after having con- 
quered every foe to the permanence of the glo- 
rious Union. I close with the sentiment of the 
immortal Jackson, which I wish you to bear 
constantly in mind, in your victorious pro- 
gress — "The Federal Union — it must and shall 
be preserved!" Eelying upon the God of 
battles, rest assured that the right cause will 
triumph, and that after having secured the great 
object of your warfare, the preservation of the 
Union, your children and your children's chil- 
dren will rise up and call you blessed, rejoicing 
in the enjoyment of a free, united, and happy 
country. 

Wishing you abundant success, I beg leave 
to retire. 

On Saturday, the 2d of August, 1862, we 
left Eienzi, en route for the North, in company 
with William H. Hubbard, Esq., and family, 
who were also refugees. From the moment I 
reached the Federal lines I experienced nothing 
but kindness. I could not mention all who are 



208 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

deserving of thanks from myself and family. I 
am under special obligations to Generals Nel- 
son, Kosecrans, Granger, Davis, and Asboth; 
also to Colonel Bryner and Lieutenant Colonel 
Thrush, of the Forty -seventh Illinois, and Sur- 
geon Lucas, of same regiment, and to Dr. Hol- 
ley, of the Thirty-sixth Illinois Volunteers ; to 
Josiah King, Esq., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylva- 
nia; and Dr. McCook, of Steuben ville, Ohio; 
also Mrs. Ann Wheelwright, of Newburyport, 
Massachusetts, whose kind letter will ever be 
remembered, and whose " material aid" entitles 
her to lasting gratitude; and to Eev. George 
Potts, D.D., of New York; and Mr. William 
E. Dubois, of Philadelphia; Eev. Dr. Sprole, 
Newburgh, New York ; Eev. N. Hewitt, D. D., 
Bridgeport, Connecticut; and Eev. F. N. Ewing, 
Chicago, Illinois ; Eev. J. M. Krebs, D. D., New 
York; Eev. A. D. Smith, D. D., New York; 
and Eev. F. Eeck Harbaugh, Philadelphia, and 
many others. 

Before closing this chapter I would mention 
the following incident : 

On Wednesday evening, November 19th, I 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 209 

addressed the citizens of Philadelphia at the 
Sixth Presbyterian Church, (Rev. K Reck 
Harbaugh's.) A report of this address found 
its way into the city papers. Two days after- 
wards, while in conversation with Mr. Martien, 
at his book-store, two soldiers entered, one of 
whom approached, and thus addressed me ; 

" Do you know me, sir ?" 

I replied : "■ Your face is familiar, but I do 
not remember your name. It is my misfortune 
not to be able to remember proper names." 

"I read the report of your address in the 
newspaper, and through the aid of my comrade, 
I have succeeded in finding you. We have met 
before, at Tupelo." 

At the mention of Tupelo, I immediately 
recognised in the speaker the man who, after 
labouring with the others in sundering my 
chain, engaged the guard, who sat in the door- 
way, in conversation, while I watched an 
opportunity to disappear under the prison. 
Grasping him warmly by the hand, I said: "I 
now recognise you. You are Mr. Howell Trog- 
don, of Missouri, late my fellow-prisoner in 
18* 



210 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

Tupelo. How and when did you succeed in 
leaving that prison ?" 

" Being a Federal prisoner, I was removed 
from Tupelo to Mobile, and there parolled on 
the 26th of August last." 

"When was I missed after my escape, and 
how did the officers act when they learned that 
I was gone ?" 

"You were missed at roll-call, the next 
morning, and in a short time, many officers 
came into the prison. They were greatly 
enraged at this, your second flight. The 
prisoners were closely questioned as to their 
complicity in your escape, but they denied all 
knowledge of the matter. Soon all the prison- 
guards on duty during the night, thirty -three 
in number, were brought into the prison in 
chains. The cavalry was ordered out in search 
of you, and directed to shoot you down where- 
ever found. The mode of your escape was not 
discovered, and the officers were of the opinion 
that you had bribed the guards. From that 
time, the officers became more cruel than ever, and 
in two weeks, thirty-two of our fellow -prisoners 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 211 

were taken out and shot/ We never learned 
whether you had succeeded in escaping to the 
Union lines. We feared that you were over- 
taken and shot, or that you perished in the 
swamps from hunger, thirst, and fatigue. I 
hope soon to see McHatten, Speer, De Grum- 
mond, and Soper, who are also parolled, and 
they will rejoice to learn that you still live. 
During the night of your escape, we slept but 
little, through fear that our chaplain might be 
shot by the guards, and I assure you many 
fervent prayers ascended to Heaven for your 
safety." 



212 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



CHAPTER VII. 

SOUTHERN CLASSES— CRUELTY TO SLAVES. 

Sandhillers — Dirt-eating — Dipping — Their Mode of Living — 
Patois — Rain-book — Wife- trade — Coming in to see the 
Cars — Superstition — Marriage of Kinsfolks — Hardshell 
Sermon — Causes which lead to the Degradation of this 
Class — Efforts to Reconcile the Poor Whites to the Pecu- 
liar Institution — The Slaveholding Class — The Middle 
Class — Northern Isms — Incident at a Methodist Minister's 
House — Question asked a Candidate for. Licensure — Rea- 
son of Southern Hatred toward the North — Letter to Mr. 
Jackman — Barbarities and Cruelties of Slavery — Mulat- 
toes — Old Cole — Child Born at Whipping-post — Advertise- 
ment of a Keeper of Bloodhounds — Getting Rid of Free 
Blacks — The Doom of Slavery — Methodist Church South. 

The sojourner in the Slave States is struck with 
the wretched and degraded appearance of a 
class of people called by the slaveholders, 
"poor white folks," and "the tallow-faced gen- 
try," from their pallid complexion. They live 
in wretched hovels, dress slatternly, and are 
exceedingly filthy in their habits. Many of 
them are clay or dirt-eaters, which is said to 
cause their peculiar complexion. Their chil- 



\ 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 213 

dren, at a very early age, form this filthy and 
disgusting habit; and mere infants may be 
found with their mouths filled with dirt. The 
mud with which they daub the interstices 
between the logs of their rude domicils, must 
be frequently renewed, as the occupants pick it 
all out in a very short time, and eat it. This 
pernicious practice induces disease. The com- 
plexion becomes pale, similar to that occasioned 
by chronic ague and fever. 

Akin to this is the practice of snuff- dipping, 
which is not confined exclusively to females of 
the poor white caste, though scarcely one in 
fifty of this class is exempt from the disgusting 
habit. The method is this : The female snuff- 
dipper takes a short stick, and wetting it with 
her saliva, dips it into her snuff-box, and then 
rubs the gathered dust all about her mouth, 
and into the interstices of her teeth, where she 
allows it to remain until its strength has been 
fully absorbed. Others hold the stick thus 
loaded with snuff in the cheek, a la quid of 
tobacco, and suck it with a decided relish, 
while engaged in their ordinary avocations; 



214 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 

while others simply fill the mouth with the 
snuff, and imitate, to all intents and purposes, 
the chewing propensities of the men. In the 
absence of snuff, tobacco in the plug or leaf is 
invariably resorted to as a substitute. Oriental 
betel-chewing, and the Japanese fashion of 
blacking the teeth of married ladies, are the 
height of elegance compared with snuff-dipping. 
The habit leads to a speedy decay of the teeth, 
and to nervous disorders of every kind. Those 
who indulge in it become haggard at a very 
early age. 

The Petersburg (Va.) Express estimates the 
number of women in that State as one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand, one hundred thou- 
sand of whom are snuff-dippers. Every five 
of these will use a two-ounce paper of snuff 
per day ; that is, to the hundred thousand dip- 
pers, two thousand five hundred pounds a day, 
amounting, in one year, to the enormous quan- 
tity of nine hundred and twelve thousand 
pounds. This practice prevails generally, it 
says, among the poor whites, though some 
females of the higher classes are guilty of it. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 215 

The poor whites obtain their subsistence, as 
far as practicable, in the primitive aboriginal 
mode, viz., by hunting and fishing. When these 
methods fail to afford a supply, they cultivate a 
truck-patch, and some of them raise a bale or 
two of cotton, with the proceeds of the sale of 
which they buy whiskey, tobacco, and a few 
necessary articles. When all other methods 
fail, they resort to stealing, to which many of 
them are addicted from choice, as well as from 
necessity. They are exceeding slovenly in 
their habits, cleanliness being a rare virtue. 
Indolence is a prevailing vice, and its lamenta- 
ble effects are everywhere visible. They fully 
obey the scriptural injunction, take no thought 
for the morrow. A present supply, sufficient to 
satisfy nature's most urgent demands, being 
obtained, their care ceases, and they relapse 
into listless inactivity. They herd together 
upon the poor sand-hills, the refuse land of the 
country, which the rich slaveholder will not 
purchase, for which reason, they are sometimes 
called sand-hillers, and here they live, and their 
children, and their children's children, through 



216 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

successive generations, in the same deplorable 
condition of wretchedness and degradation. 

They are exceedingly ignorant; not one 
adult in fifty can write ; not one in twenty can 
read. They can scarcely be said to speak the 
English language, using a patois which is 
scarcely intelligible. An old lady thus related 
an incident of which her daughter "Sal" was 
the heroine. " My darter Sal yisterday sot the 
lather to the damsel tree, and clim up, and 
knocked some of the nicest saftest damsels I 
ever seed in my born days." I once called to 
make some inquiry about the road, at a small 
log tenement, inhabited by a sand-hiller and 
family. A sheet was hanging upon the wall, 
containing the portraits of the Presidents of 
the United States. I remarked to the lady of 
the house that those were, I believed, the pic- 
tures of the Presidents. 

"Yes!" she replied; "they is, and I've hearn 
tell of 'em a long time. They must be gittin' 
mighty old, ef some of 'em aint dead. That 
top one," she continued, " is Gineral Washing- 
ton. I've hearn of him ever sence I was a gal. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION". 217 

He must be gittin' up in years, ef he aint dead. 
Him and G'meral Jackson fit the British and 
Tories at New Orleans, and whipped 'em, too." 

She seemed to pride herself greatly on her 
. historical knowledge. 

One of these geniuses once informed me of 
a peculiar kind of book "he'd hearn tell on," 
that the Yankees had. He had forgotten its 
name, but thus described it : "It told the day 
of the week the month come in on. It told 
when we was a gwine to have rain, and what 
kind of wether we was gwine to have in 
gineral. May-be they call it a rain-book." 

I replied that I had heard of the book, and I 
believed that it was called an Almanac. 

"You've said it now," remarked the man. 
"It's a alminick, and I'd give half I's wuth to 
have one. I'd no when to take a umberell, and 
if I haddent nary one, I'd no when I could go 
a huntin' without gittin' wet." 

Two of these semi-savages had resolved to 

remove to the West, in hope of bettering their 

condition. One wished to remove to Arkansas, 

the other to Texas. The wife of the former 

19 



218 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

wished to go to Texas, the latter to Arkansas. 
The husbands were desirous of gratifying their 
spouses, but could devise no plan that seemed 
likely to prove satisfactory, till one day when 
hunting, finding game scarce, they sat down 
upon a log, when the following dialogue took 
place : 

" Kit, I'm sort o' pestered about Dilsie. She 
swars to Rackensack she'll go, and no whar 
else. I allers had a hankerin' arter Texas. 
Plague take Rackensack, I say ! Ef a man war 
thar, the ager and the airthquakes ed shake him 
out on it quicker en nothin'." 

" When a woman's set on a gwine any whar, 
they're a gwine. It's jest no use to talk. I've 
coaxed Minnie more'n a little to go long with 
me to Arkansas, and the more I coax, the more 
she wont go." 

"Well, Kit, 'sposen we swap women." 
"Well, Sam, what trade'll ye gin?" 
" Oh ! a gentleman's trade, of course !" 
"Shucks, Sam! 'sposen I had a young filly, 
and you a old mar, ye wouldn't ax an even 
trade, would ye ?" 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 219 

" No ; it 'ud be too hard. I tell you what 
I'll do, Kit. Here's a shot-gun that's wuth ten 
dollars, ef it's wuth a red. . I'll give it and that 
ar b'ar-skin hangin' on the side of my shanty, 
to boot, and say it's a trade." 

"jMufY sed, ef the women's agreed." 
Home they went, and stated the case to the 
women, who, after due deliberation, acceded to 
the proposition, having also made a satisfactory 
arrangement about the children, and they all 
soon went on their way rejoicing to their 
respective destinations in that 

"American's haven of eternal rest, 
Found a little farther West." 

On the Sabbath after the completion of the 
Memphis and Charleston railroad, a large num- 
ber of the sand-hillers came to Iuka Springs, 
to witness the passing of the cars. Arriving 
too early, they visited a church where divine 
service was progressing. Whilst the minister 
was in the midst of his sermon, the locomotive 
whistle sounded, when a stampede took place 
to the railroad. The exodus left the parson 



220 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



almost alone in his glory. The passing train 
caused the most extravagant expressions and 
gestures of wonder and astonishment by these 
rude observers. It was an era in their life. 

Once while standing on the railroad-track, I 
observed a crowd of these people coming to see 
the "elephant." They came so near, that I 
overheard their conversation. One young lass, 
of sweet sixteen, with slattern dress and 
dishevelled hair, looking up the road, which 
was visible for a great distance, thus expressed 
her astonishment at what she saw : " 0, dad ! 
what a long piece of iron !" Soon the whistle 
sounded ; this they had never heard before, and 
came to the conclusion that it was a dinner- 
horn. As soon as the cars came in sight, 
they scattered like frightened sheep, some on 
one side of the road, and some on the other. 
Nor did they halt till they had placed fifty 
yards at least between them and the track. 

Superstition prevails amongst them to a fear- 
ful extent. Almost every hut has a horse-shoe 
nailed above the door, or on the threshold, to 
keep out witches. In sickness, charms and 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 221 

incantations are used to drive away disease. 
Their physicians are chiefly what are termed 
faith-doctors, who are said to work miraculous 
cures. They are strong believers in luck. If 
a rabbit cross their path, they will turn round 
to change their luck. If, on setting out on a 
journey, an owl hoot on the left hand, they 
will return and set out anew. If the new moon 
is seen through brush, or on the left hand, it is 
a bad omen. They will have trouble during 
the lunar month. When the whippoorwill is 
first heard in the spring, they turn head over 
heels thrice, to prevent back-ache during the 
year. Dreams are harbingers of joy or wo. 
To dream of snakes, is ominous. To dream of 
seeing a coffin, or conversing with the dead, is 
a sign of approaching dissolution, and many 
have no doubt perished through terror, occa- 
sioned by such dreams. Fortune-tellers are 
rife amongst them — those sages whose compre- 
hensive view knows the past, the present, and 
the future. They seek unto familiar spirits, 
that peep and mutter, for the living to the 
dead. 

19* 



222 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

They have many deformed, and blind, and 
deaf among them, in consequence of the inter- 
marriage of relatives. Cousins often marry, 
and occasionally they marry within the degrees 
of consanguinity prohibited by the law of God. 
Perhaps this divine law forbids the marriage 
of cousins when it declares, "Thou shalt not 
marry any that is near . of kin." The sad 
effects on posterity, both mentally and physi- 
cally, lead to the conviction that if the law of 
God does not condemn it, physiological law 
does. 

These sand-hillers do not (when no serious 
preventive occurs) fail to attend the elections, 
where the highest bidder obtains their vote. 
Sometimes their vote will command cash, and 
sometimes only whiskey. It is sad to witness 
the elective franchise, that highest and most 
glorious badge of a freeman, thus prostituted. 

The proverb holds good — Like people, like 
priest. Their ministers are ignorant, ranting 
fanatics. They despise literature, and every 
Sabbath fulminate censures upon an educated 
ministry. The following is a specimen of their 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 223 

preaching. Mr. Y is a Hard-shell Baptist, 

or, as they term themselves, "Primitive Bap- 
tists." Entering the pulpit on a warm morning 
in July, he will take off his coat and vest, roll 
up his sleeves, and then begin : 

My Brethering and Sistern — I air a 
ignorant man, follered the plough all my life, 
and never rubbed agin nary college. As I 
said afore, I'm ignorant, and I thank God for 
it. (Brother Jones responds, "Passon, yer ort 
to be very thankful, fur yer very ignorant.") 
"Well, I'm agin all high larnt fellers what 
preaches grammar and Greek far a thousand 
dollars a year They preaches fur the money, 
and they gits it, and that's all they'll git. 
They've got so high larnt they contradicts 
Scripter, what plainly tells us that the sun 
rises and sets. They seys it don't, but that the 
yerth whirls round, like clay to the seal. What 
ud cum of the water in the wells ef it did. 
vYodent it all spill out, and leave 'em dry, and 
whar ed we be ? I may say to them, as the 



224 THE IRON FURNACE* OR 

sarpent said unto David, much learning hath 
made thee mad. 

When I preaches, I never takes a tex till I 
goes inter the pulpit ; then I preaches a plain 
sarment, what even women can understand. I 
never premedertates, but what is given to me 
in that same hour, that I sez. Now I'm a 
gwine ter open the Bible, and the first verse I 
sees, I'm a gwine to take it for a tex. (Suiting 
the action to the word, he opened the Bible, 
and commenced reading and spelling together.) 
Man is f-e-a-r-f-u-1-l-y — fearfully — and w-o-n- 
d-e-r-f-u-1-l-y — wonderfully — m-a-d-e — mad. — 
"Man is fearfully and wonderfully made." 
(Pronounced mad) Well, it's a quar tex, but 
I said I's a gwine to preach from it, and I'm 
a gwine to do it. In the fust place, I'll divide 
my sarment into three heads. Fust and fore- 
most, I show you that a man will git mad. 
2d. That sometimes he'll git fearfully mad ; and 
thirdly and lastly, when thar's lots of things to 
vex and pester him, he'll git fearfully and won- 
derfully mad. And in the application I'll 
show you that good men sometimes gits mad, 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 225 

for the Posle David hisself, who rote the tex, 
got mad, and called all men liars, and cnssed 
his enemies, wisheri* 'em to go down quick into 
hell; and Noah, he got tite, and cnssed his 
nigger boy Ham, just like some drunken mas- 
ters now cusses their niggers. But Noah and 
David repented; and all on us what gits mad 
must repent, or the devil '11 git us. 

Thus he ranted, to the great edification of 
his hearers, who regard him as a perfect Boan- 
erges, to which title his stentorian voice would 
truly entitle him. This exordium will serve as 
a specimen of the "sarment," as it continued in 
the same strain to the end of the peroration. 

Where there is no vision, the people perish. 
Such blind leaders of the blind are liable, with 
their infatuated followers, to fall into a ditch 
worse than Bunyan's Slough of Despond. This 
minister had undoubtedly run when he was 
not sent, though he "had hearn a call; a audi- 
ble voice had, while he was a shucken corn, 
said unto him, Preach." Though God does not 
need men's learning, yet he has as little use for 



226 THE IRON FURNACE; OB 

their ignorance. Learning is the handmaid of 
religion, but must not be substituted in its 
stead. 

The causes which induce this "wilderness of 
mind" are patent to all who make even a cur- 
sory examination. There is a tendency in the 
poor to ape the manners of the rich. Those 
having slaves to labour in their stead, toil not 
physically; hence labour falls into disrepute, 
and the poorer classes, having no slaves to 
work for them, and not choosing to submit to 
the degradation of labour, incur all the evils 
resulting from idleness and poverty. Igno- 
rance and vice of every kind soon ensue, and a 
general apathy prevails, which destroys in a 
great measure all mental and physical vigour. 

The slaveholders buy up all the fertile lands 
to be cultivated by their slaves ; hence the poor 
are crowded out, and if they remain in the 
vicinity of the place of their nativity, they 
must occupy the poor tracts whose sterility does 
not excite the cupidity of their rich neighbours. 
The slaveholders' motto is, "Let us bay more 
negroes to raise more cotton, to buy more 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION". 227 

negroes, and so on ad infinitum. To raise more 
cotton they must also buy more land. Small 
farmers are induced to sell out to them, and 
move further west. For this reason, the white 
population of the fertile sections of the older 
slave States is constantly on the decrease, while 
the slave population is as constantly increasing. J 
Thus the slaveholder often acquires many square 
miles of land, and hundreds of human chattels. 
He is, as it were, set alone in the earth. Prid- 
ing himself upon his wealth, he will riot send 
his princely sons to the same school with the 
poor white trash ; he either sends them to some 
distant college or seminary, or employs a pri- 
vate teacher exclusively for his children. The 
poor whites in the neighbourhood, even should 
they desire to educate their children, have no 
means to pay for their tuition. Compelled to 
live on poor or worn-out lands, honest toil 
considered degrading, and forced to submit to 
many inconveniences and disabilities (all the 
offices of honour and profit being monopolized 
by the slaveholders,) through the workings of 
the " peculiar institution," they find it utterly 



228 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

impossible to educate • their offspring, even in 
the rudiments of their mother tongue. As 
the power of slavery increases, their condition 
waxes worse and worse. 

The slaveocracy becomes more exacting. 
Laws are passed by the legislature compelling 
non-slaveholders to patrol the country nightly, 
to prevent insurrections by the rfegroes. They 
denounce the law, but coercion is resorted to, 
and the poor whites are forced to obey. When 
their masters call for them, they must leave 
their labour, by day or by night, patrol the 
country, follow the bloodhounds, arrest the 
fugitive slave, and do all other dirty work 
which their tyrants demand. If they refuse to 
obey, they are denounced as abolitionists, and 
are in dansrer of death at the hands of Jud<?e 
Lynch, the mildest punishment they can hope 
for being a coat of tar aud feathers. 

The house-negroes feel themselves several 
degrees above the poor whites, as they, from 
their opportunities for observation amongst the 
higher classes, are possessed of greater informa- 
tion and less rusticity than this less favoured 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION". 229 

class. The poor whites have no love for 
the institution of slavery. They regard it as 
the instrument of inflicting upon them many 
wrongs, and depriving them of many rights. 
They dare not express their sentiments to the 
slaveholders, who hold them completely under 
their power. A. Gr. Brown, United States 
Senator from Mississippi, to reconcile the poor 
whites to the peculiar institution, used the 
following arguments in a speech at Iuka 
Springs, Mississippi. He stated, that if the 
slaves were liberated, and suffered to remain in 
the country, the rich would have money to 
enable them to go .to some other clime, and 
that the poor whites would be compelled to 
remain amongst the negroes, who would steal 
their property, and destroy their lives ; and if 
slavery were abolished, and the negroes removed 
and colonized, the rich would take the poor 
whites for slaves, in their stead, and reduce 
them to the condition of the Irish and Dutch 
in the North, whose condition he represented 
to be one of cruel bondage. These statements 
had some effect upon his auditors, who believed, 
20 



230 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

from sad experience, that the rich could oppress 
the poor as they chose, and might, in the con- 
tingency specified, reduce them to slavery. 
Labour is considered so degrading, that any 
argument, based upon making labour compul- 
sory on their part, has its weight. Even the 
beggar despises work. A sturdy beggar asked 
alms at a house at which I was lodging. As 
he appeared to be a man of great physical 
strength, he was advised to go to work, and 
thus provide for his wants. " Work !" said he, 
in disgust; "niggers do the work in this coun- 
try" — and retired highly insulted. 

This people form a distinct class, distin- 
guished by as many characteristics from the 
middle and higher classes of Southern society, 
as the Jews are from the nations amongst whom 
they sojourn. The causes which brought about 
their reduction to their present state of semi- 
barbarism, must be removed, ere they can rise 
to the condition whence they have fallen. 
They must rise upon the ruins of slavery. 
When the peculiar institution is abolished, 
then, and not till then, will their disabilities be 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 231 

removed, and they be in reality what they are 
nominally — freemen. 

Slaveholders and their families form a dis- 
tinet class, characterized by idleness, vanity, 
licentionsness, profanity, dissipation, and tyran- 
ny. There are glorious exceptions, it is true, 
but those are the distinguishing traits of the 
class. The middle class is the virtuous class 
of the South. They are industrious, frugal, 
hospitable, simple in their habits, plain and 
unostentatious in their manners. Some of this 
class are small slaveholders, but the great 
majority own none. The gross vices of the 
higher class are not found among them. They 
labour regardless of the sneers of their aristo- 
cratic neighbours. Senator Hammond, of South 
Carolina, may call them mudsills ; they regard 
it not, but pursue the even tenor of their way. 
The slow, unmoving finger of scorn may be 
pointed at them by the sons of pride, yet they 
refuse to eat the bread of idleness, and labour 
with their own hands, that they may provide 
things honest in the sight of all men. Equi- 
distant from poverty and riches, they enjoy the 



232 THE IKON FURNACE; OR 

golden mean, and immunity from the tempta- 
tions incident to the extremes of abject poverty 
and great riches. 

In the slave States all those born north of 
the " nigger line," are denominated Yankees. 
This is applied as a term of reproach. When 
a southerner is angry with a man of northern 
nativity, he does not fail to stigmatize him as a 
Yankee. The slaveholders manifest considera- 
ble antipathy against the Yankees, which has 
been increasing during the last ten years. In 
1858, the Legislature of Mississippi passed 
resolutions recommending non-intercourse with 
the "Abolition States," and requesting the 
people not to patronize natives of those States 
residing amongst them, and especially to dis- 
countenance Yankee ministers and teachers. 
In the educational notice of Memphis Synodical 
College, at La Grange, Tennessee, it is expressly 
stated that the Faculty are of southern birth 
and education. The principals of the Female 
Seminaries at Corinth and Iuka, Mississippi, 
give notice that no Yankee teachers will be 
employed in those institutions. While on a 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 2oo 

visit at the house of a Methodist clergyman, 
quite a number of ministers, returning from 
Conference, called to tarry for the night. During 
the evening, one of them, learning that I was 
"Yankee born,' 1 '' thus interrogated me: "Why is 
it, sir, that all kinds of delusions originate in 
the North, such as Millerism, Mormonism, 
Spirit-rappings, and Abolitionism?" To which 
I replied: "The North originates everything. 
All the text-books used in southern schools, 
all the books on law, physic, and divinity, are 
written and published north of Mason & Dix- 
on's line. The South does not even print 
Bibles. The magnetic telegraph, the locomo- 
tive, Lucifer matches, and even the cotton-gin, 
are all northern inventions. The . South, sir, 
has not sense enough to invent a decent 
humbug. These humbugs once originated, the 
South is always well represented by believers 
in them. I have known more men to go from 
this county (Shelby county, Tennessee) to the 
Mormons, than I have known to go from the 
whole State of Ohio." 
20* 



2oi THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

When I had thus spoken, my inquisitor was 
nonplussed, and the laugh went against him. 

"When a candidate before the Presbytery of 
Chickasaw, in Mississippi, for licensure, one of 
the members of Presbytery, learning that I was 
a "Yankee," asked me the following questions, 
and received the following answers : 

" Mr. Aughey, when will the day of judg- 
ment take place?" 

". The Millerites have stated that the 30th of 
June next will be the judgment- day. As for 
myself, I have had no revelation on the sub- 
ject, and expect none." 

" Do you believe that any one can call the 
spirits?" 

" I do, sir." 

"What! believe that the spirits can be 
called?" 

"I do, sir." 

"I will vote, then, against your licensure, if 
you have fallen into this heresy of the land of 
your nativity." 

Another then said : 

"Brother Aughey, please explain yourself. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 235 

I know you do not believe in spirit-rap- 
ping." 

"I do not, sir, though I believe, as I stated, 
that any one may call the spirits ; but I do not 
believe that they will come in answer to the 
call." 

A lady once remarked to me that she did 
not believe that a northern man would ever 
become fully reconciled to the institution of 
slavery, and that his influence and sentiments, 
whatever might be his profession of attachment 
to the peculiar institution, would be against it. 
The cause of the general opposition to northern 
men is their opposition to slavery. Their testi- 
mony is against its abominations and barbari- 
ties, and hence the wish to impair the credi- 
bility of the witnesses. 

An illustration of the working of the institu- 
tion may be found in the following letter : 

Kosciusko, Attala county, Mississippi, ) 
December 25, 1861. ) 

Mr. William Jackman: 

Dear Sir — Your last kind and truly welcome 
letter came to hand in due course of mail. I 



2o(5 THE IRON furnace; or 

owe you an apology for delaying an answer so 
long. My apparent neglect was occasioned by 
no want of respect for you ; but in consequence 
of the disturbed state of the country, and diffi- 
culty of communication with the North, I 
feared my reply would never reach you. Now, 
however, by directing "via Norfolk and flag of 
truce," letters are sent across the lines to the 
North. In your letter you desired me, from this 
stand-point, to give you my observations of the 
workings of the peculiar institution, and an 
expression of my views as to its consistency 
with the eternal principles of rectitude and 
justice. In reply, I will give you a plain nar- 
rative of facts. 

On my advent to the South, I was at 
first struck with the fact that the busy 
hum of labour had in some measure ceased. 
"What labour I did observe progressing, was 
done with little skill, and mainly by negroes. 
I called upon the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, 
to whom I had a letter of introduction, who 
treated me with the greatest kindness, inviting 
me to make his house my home when I visited 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 237 

that section of country. On leaving his house, 
he gave me some directions as to the road I 
must travel to reach a certain point. "You 
will pass," said he, " a blacksmith's shop, where 
a one-eyed man is at work — my property." 
The phrase, " my property," I had never before 
heard applied to a human being, and though I 
had never been taught to regard the relation 
of master and slave as a sinful relation, yet it 
grated harshly upon my ears to hear a human 
being, a tradesman, called a chattel; but it 
grated much more harshly, a week after this, to 
hear the groans of two such chattels, as they 
underwent a severe flagellation, while chained 
to the whipping-post, because they had, by half 
an hour, overstayed their time with their fami- 
lies on an adjoining plantation. 

The next peculiar abomination of the pecu- 
liar institution which I observed, was the licen- 
tiousness engendered by it. Mr. D. T , of 

Madison county, Kentucky, had a white family 
of children, and a black, or rather mulatto fam- 
ily. As his white daughters married, he gave 
each a mulatto half-sister, as a waiting-girl, or 



238 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

body-servant. Mr. K , of Winchester, Ken- 
tucky, had a mulatto daughter, and he was also 
the father of her child, thus re-enacting Lot's sin. 

Dr. C , of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, 

has a negro concubine, and a white servant to 

wait on her. Mr. B , of Marshall county, 

Mississippi, lived with his white wife till he 
had grandchildren, some of whom came to 
school to me, when he repudiated his white 
wife, and attached himself to a very homely old , 
African, who superintends his household, and 

rules his other slaves with rigour. Mr. S , 

of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, has a negro 
concubine, and a large family of mulatto chil- 
dren. He once brousrht this woman to church 
in Eienzi, to the great indignation of the white 
ladies, who removed to a respectable distance 
from her. 

I preached recently to a large congregation 
of slaves, the third of whom were as white as 
myself. Some of them had red hair and blue 
eyes. If there are any marked character- 
istics of their masters' families, the mulatto 
slaves are possessed of these characteristics. I 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 239 

refer to physical peculiarities, such as large 
mouths, humped shoulders, and peculiar expres- 
sions of countenance. I asked a gentleman 
how it happened that some of his slaves had 
red hair. He replied that he had a red-headed 
overseer for several years. - 

I never -knew a pious overseer — never! 
There may be many, but I never saw one. 
Overseers, as a class, are worse than slave- 
holders themselves. They are cruel, brutal, 
licentious, dissipated, and profane. They 
always carry a loaded whip, a revolver, and 
a Bowie-knife. These men have the control 
of women, whom they often whip to death. 

Mr. P , who resided near Holly Springs, 

had a negro woman whipped to death while I 
was at his house during a session of Presbytery. 

Mr. C , of Waterford, Mississippi, had a 

woman whipped to death by his overseer. But 
such cruel scourgings are of daily occurrence. 

Colonel H , a member of my church, told 

me yesterday that he ordered a boy, who he sup- 
posed was feigning sickness, to the whipping- 
post, but that he had not advanced ten steps 



240 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

toward it, when he fell dead! — and the servant 
was free from his master. During onr conver- 
sation, a girl passed. "There is a girl," said 
he, " who does not look very white in the face, 
owing to exposure; but when I strip her to 
whip her, I find that she has a skin as fair as 

my wife." Mrs. F recently whipped a boy 

to death within half a mile of my residence. 
A jury of inquest returned a verdict that he 
came to his death by cruelty ; but nothing more 

was done. Mrs. M and, her daughter, of 

Holly Springs, abused a girl repeatedly. She 
showed her bruises to some of my acquaint- 
ances, and they believed them fatal. She soon 

after died. Mr. S , a member of my church, 

has several maimed negroes from abuse on the 
part of the overseer. 

I am residing on the banks of the Yock-a- 
nookany, which means "meandering," when 
translated from the Indian tongue. In this 
vicinity there are large plantations, cultivated 
by hundreds of negroes. The white population 
is sparse. Every night the negroes are brought 
to a judgment-seat. The overseer presides. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION". 241 

If they have not laboured to suit him, or if 
their task is unfulfilled, they are chained to a 
post, and severely whipped. The victims are 
invariably stripped; to what extent, is at the 
option of the overseer. In Louisiana, women, 
preparatory to whipping, are often stripped to 

a state of perfect nudity. Old Mr. C , of 

Waterford, Mississippi, punished his negroes 
Ly slitting the soles of their feet with his Bowie- 
knife! One man he put into a cotton-press, 
and, turned the screw till life was extinct. 
He stated that he only intended to alarm 
the man, but carried the joke too far. I 
have heard women thus plead, in piteous 
i accents, when chained to the whipping-post, 
and stripped: "0, my God, master! don't 
whip me ! I was sick ! indeed I was sick ! I 
had a chill, and the fever is on me now! I 
haven't tasted a morsel to-day ! You know I 
works when I is well ! for God's sake don't 
whip a poor sick nigger ! My poor chile's sick 
too ! Missis thinks it's a dyin' ! master, for 
the love of God, don't cut a poor distressed 
woman wid your whip! I'll try to do better, 
21 



242 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

ef you'll only let mc off tliis once !" These 
piteous plaints only rouse the ire of their cruel 
task-masters, who sometimes knock them down 
in the midst of their pleadings. I have known 
an instance of a woman giving birth to a child 
at the whipping-post. The fright and pain 
brought on premature labour. 

One beautiful Sabbath morning I stood on 
the levee at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and 
counted twenty-seven sugar-houses in full blast. 
I found that the negroes were compelled to 
labour eighteen hours per day, and were not 
permitted to rest on the Sabbath during the 
rolling season. The negroes on most planta- 
tions have a truck-patch, which they cultivate 
on the Sabbath. I have pointed out the sin of 
thus labouring on the Sabbath, but they plead 
necessity; their children, they state, must suffer 
from hunger if they did not cultivate their 
truck-patch, and their masters would not give 
them time on any other day. 

Negroes, by law, are prohibited from learn- 
ing to read. This law was not strictly enforced 
in Tennessee and some other States till within 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 243 

a few years past. I had charge of a Sabbath- 
school for the instruction of blacks in Mem- 
phis, Tennessee, in 1853. This school was put 
down by the strong arm of the law in a short 
time after my connection with it ceased. In 
Mississippi, a man who taught slaves to read 
or write would be sent to the penitentiary 
instanter. The popular plea for this wicked- 
ness is, that if they were taught to read, they 
would read abolition documents; and if they 
were taught to write, they would write them- 
selves passes, and pass northward to Canada. 

Such advertisements as the following often 
greet the eye. 

"Kansas War. — The undersind taks this 
method of makkin it noan that he has got a 
paek of the best nigger hounds in the South. 
My hounds is well trand, and I has had much 
experience a huntin niggers, having follered it 
for the last fiften year. I will go anywhar that 
I'm sent for, and will ketch niggers at the fol- 
lerin raits. 

"My raits fur ketchin runaway niggers $10 
per heel, ef they's found in the beat whar thar 



2±± THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

master lives ; $15 if they's found in the county, 
and $50 if they's tuck out on the county. 

"N. B. — Pay is due when the nigger is tuck. 
Planters ort to send fur me as soon as thar 
niggers runs away, while thar trak is fresh." 

Every night the woods resound with the 
deep-mouthed baying of the bloodhounds. The 
slaves are said by some to love their masters ; 
but it requires the terrors of bloodhounds and 
the fugitive slave law to keep them in bond- 
age. You in the North are compelled to act 
the part of the bloodhounds here, and catch the 
fugitives for the planters of the South. Free 
negroes are sold into bondage for the most 
trivial offences. Slaveholders declare that the 
presence of free persons of colour exerts a per- 
nicious influence upon their slaves, rendering 
them discontented with their condition, and 
inspiring a desire for freedom. They there- 
fore are very desirous of getting rid of these 
persons, either by banishing them from the 
State or enslaving them. The legislature of 
Mississippi has passed a law for their expul- 
sion, and other States have followed in the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 24:5 

wake. The Governor of Missouri has vetoed 
the law for the expulsion of free persons of 
colour, passed by the legislature of that State 
because of its unconstitutionality. 

Were I to recount all the abominations of 
the peculiar institution, and the wrongs inflicted 
upon the African race, that have come under 
my observation, they would fill a large volume. 
Slavery is guilty of six abominations; yea, 
seven may justly be charged upon it. It is 
said that the negro is lazy, and will not work 
except by compulsion. I have known negroes 
who have purchased their freedom by the pay- 
ment of a large sum, and afterward made not 
only a good living, but a fortune beside. It is 

said Judge W of South Carolina gave his 

servants the use of his plantation, upon con- 
dition that they would support his family; and 
that in three years he was compelled to take 
the management himself, as they did not make 
a comfortable living for themselves and the 
Judge's family. In reply, it might be said that 
the negroes had not a fair trial, as no one had 
any property he could call his own, and they 
21* 



246 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

were thrown into a sort of Fourierite society, 
having all things in common. In this state of 
things, while some would work, others would 
be idle. White men do not succeed in such 
communities, and for this reason it was no fair 

test of the industrial energies of Judge W 's 

slaves. 

The question is often asked, is slavery sinful 
in itself? My observation has been extensive, 
embracing eight slave States, and I have never 
yet seen any example of slavery that I did not 
deem sinful. If slavery is not sinful in itself, 
I must have always seen it out of itself. I 
have observed its workings during eleven 
years, amongst a professedly Christian people, 
and cannot do otherwise than pronounce it 
an unmitigated curse. It is a curse to the 
white man, it is a curse to the black man. 
That God will curse it, and blot it out of 
existence ere long, is my firm conviction. The 
elements of its abolition exist; God speed the 
time when they will be fully developed, and 
this mother of abominations driven from the 
land of the free! The development of the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 247 

eternal principles of justice and rectitude will 
abolish this hoary monster of fraud and oppres- 
sion. Slavery subverts all the rights of man. 
It divests him of citizenship, of liberty, of the 
pursuit of happiness, of his children, of his 
wife, of his property, of intellectual culture, 
reserving to him only the rights of the horse 
and ass, and reducing him to the same chattel 
condition with them. Not a single right does 
the State law grant him above that of the mule 
— no, not one. The chastity of the slave 
has no legal protection. The Methodist Church 
South is expunging from the discipline every- 
thing inimical to the peculiar institution, 
whilst I observe that the Church North 
is adding to her testimony and deliverances 
against the sin of slaveholding. The Church 
South refused to abide by the rules of the 
Church, and hence the guilt of the schism lies 
with her, and you are henceforth free from any 
guilt in conniving at the sin which the founder 
of your church, the illustrious Wesley, regarded 
as the "sum of all villany." 

Kemember me kindly to Mrs. Jackman and 



248 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

family. Hoping to hear from you soon, I beg 
leave to subscribe myself, 

Yours fraternally, 

John H. Aughey. 

To Mr. William Jackman, 
Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 249 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

NOTORIOUS REBELS.— UNION OFFICERS. 

Colonel Jefferson Davis — His Speech at Holly Springs, Mis- 
sissippi — His Opposition to Yankee Teachers and Minis- 
ters — A bid for the Presidency — His Ambition — Burr, 
Arnold, Davis. — General Beauregard — Headquarters at 
Rienzi — Colonel Elliott's Raid — Beauregard's Consterna- 
tion — Personal description— His illness — Popularity wan- 
ing. — Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans — His influence — 
The Cincinnati Letter — His Personal Appearance — His 
Denunciations of General Butler — His Radicalism. — Rev. 
Dr. Waddell of La Grange, Tennessee — His Prejudices 
against the North — President of Memphis Synodical Col- 
lege — His Talents prostituted. — Union Officers — General 
Nelson — General Sherman. 

COLONEL JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

In 1856 I heard Colonel Jefferson Davis deliver 
an address at Holly Springs, Mississippi. The 
Colonel is about a 'medium height, of slender 

a 

frame, his nose aquiline, his hair dark, his 
manners polite. He is no orator. His speech 
was principally a tirade of abuse against the 
North, bitterly inveighing against the emi- 



250 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

grant aid societies which had well-nigh put 
Kansas upon the list of free States. He advised 
the people to employ no more Yankee teachers. 
He had been educated in the North, and he 
regarded it as the greatest misfortune of his 
life. Soon after Colonel Davis visited New 
England, where he eulogized that section in an 
extravagant manner. He was pleased with 
everything he saw; even "Noah Webster's 
Yankee spelling-book" received a share of the 
Colonel's fulsome flattery. On his return to 
the South, H a change came o'er the spirit of his 
dream," and his bile and bitterness against 
Yankee-land returned in all its pristine vigour. 
The Colonel was making a bid for the Presi- 
dency; but New England was not so easily 
gulled; his flimsy professions of friendship 
were too transparent to hide the hate which lay 
beneath, and his aspirations were doomed to 
disappointment. 

though Colonel Davis is often called Missis- 
sippi's pet, yet he is not regarded as a truthful 
man, and his reports and messages are received 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 251 

with considerable abatement by "the chivalry." 
His ambition knows no bounds. He would 
rather " reign in hell than serve in heaven." 

Had Jefferson Davis been elected President 
of the United States, he would have been 
among the last instead of the first to favour 
secession. Had he been slain on the bloody 
fields of Mexico, his memory would have been 
cherished. History will assign him a place 
among the infamous. Burr, Arnold, and 
Davis will be names for ever execrated by 
true patriots. The two former died a natural 
death, though the united voice of their coun- 
trymen would have approved of their execu- 
tion on the gallows. The fate of the latter lies 
still in the womb of futurity, though his loyal 
countrymen, without a dissenting voice, declare 
that he deserves a felon's doom. An announce- 
ment of his death would suffuse no patriot's 
eye with tears. What loyalist would weep 
while he read the news-item — the arch traitor 
Jeff. Davis is dead. 



252 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD. 

I met General Beauregard under very pecu- 
liar circumstances. I had gone to Rienzi for 
the purpose of escaping to the Federal lines for 
protection from the rigorous and sweeping 
conscript law. When I arrived, I found the 
rebels evacuating Corinth, and their sick and 
wounded passing- down the Mobile and Ohio 
railroad to the hospitals below. General 
Beauregard had just arrived in Rienzi, and 
had his headquarters at the house of Mr. 
Sutherland. A rumour had spread through 
Rienzi that General Beauregard had ordered 
the women and children to leave the town. 
Many of them, believing that the order had 
been issued, were hastening into the country. 
In order to confirm or refute the statement, I 
called upon General Beauregard, and asked 
him whether he had issued such an order. He 
replied, "I have issued no such order, sir." 
Just at that moment a courier arrived with the 
information that the Yankees had attacked the 
advance of their retreating army at Boonville, 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 253 

that they had destroyed the depot, and taken 
many prisoners. The General told the courier 
that he must be mistaken; that it was impos- 
sible for the Yankees to pass around his army. 
While he was yet speaking a citizen arrived 
from Boonville, confirming the statement of 
the courier. Beauregard was still incredulous, 
replying that they must have mistaken the 
Confederates for the Yankees. In a few min- 
utes the explosion of shells shook the building. 
The General then thought that it might be true 
that the Yankees had passed around the army ; 
but on hearing the shells, he stated that Gene- 
ral Green (of Missouri) was driving them away 
with his cannon. The truth was soon ascer- 
tained by the arrival of several couriers. Col. 
Elliott, of the Federal army, had made a raid 
upon Boonville, had fired the depot, and 
destroyed a large train of cars filled with 
ammunition. The explosions of the shells 
which we heard was occasioned by the fire 
reaching the cars in which these shells were 
stored. The Colonel also destroyed the rail- 
22 



251 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

road to such an extent that it required several 
days to repair the track. 

General Beauregard is below the medium 
height, and has a decidedly French expression 
of countenance. His hair is quite gray, though 
a glance at his face will convince the observer 
that it is prematurely so. The General is 
regarded as taciturn. His countenance is care- 
worn and haggard. During the winter of 
1861-2, he was attacked with bronchitis and 
typhoid pneumonia, and came near dying; 
and had not, at my interview, by any means 
recovered his pristine health and vigour. His 
prestige as an able commander is rapidly wan- 
ing. For some time his military talents were 
considered of the first order; now a third-rate 
position is assigned him. He is still regarded 
as a first-class engineer. When General Ster- 
ling Price arrived at Corinth, General Beaure- 
gard conducted him around all the fortifica- 
tions, explaining their nature and unfolding 
their strength; but no word of approval could 
he elicit from the Missouri General. At length 
he ventured to ask what he thought of their 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 255 

capacity for resisting an attack. General Price 
replied, " They may prove effective in resisting 
an attack. These are the second fortifications 
I ever saw; the first I captured." He had 
reference to Colonel Mulligans, at Lexington, 
Missouri. Sumter and Manassas gave Beaure- 
gard fame. Since the latter battle his star has 
declined steadily ; and if the Federal generals 
prove themselves competent, it will soon go out 
in total darkness, and the world's verdict will 
be, it was a misfortune that Beauregard lived. 

REV. DR. B. M. PALMER. 

Dr. Palmer has done more than any non- 
combatant in the South to promote the rebel- 
lion. He was accessory both before and after 
the fact. His sermons are nearly all abusive 
of the North. The mudsills of Yankeedom 
and the scum of Europe are phrases of frequent 
use in his public addresses, and they are meant 
to include all living north of what is more 
familiarly than elegantly termed in the South 
the " nigger line," although the North is the 
land of his parental nativity. 



256 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

A few years ago, Dr. Palmer wrote to a 
friend in Cincinnati respecting a vacant church, 
in which he gave as one reason, among others, 
for desiring to come North, that he wished to 
remove his family from the baleful influences 
of slavery. That letter still exists, and ought 
to be published. 

Dr. Palmer's personal appearance is by no 
means prepossessing. He is small of stature, 
of very dark complexion, dish-faced. His nose 
is said to have been broken when a child; at 
all events, it is a deformity. He is fluent in 
speech, has a vivid imagination, and has a 
great influence over a promiscuous congrega- 
tion. 

After the reduction of Forts Jackson and St. 
Philip, and the capture of New Orleans, Dr. 
Palmer came to Corinth, where he preached to 
the rebel army. His text was invariably Gene- 
ral Butler's "women-of-tbe-town order," which 
we fully believe he intentionally misconstrued. 
The conservation and extension of slavery is a 
•matter which lies near the Doctor's heart. He 
urged secession for the purpose of extending 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 257 

and perpetuating for ever the peculiar institu- 
tion. His views, however, must have under- 
gone a radical change since the writing of the 
Cincinnati letter, as he then regarded slavery 
with little favour. Love of public favour may 
have much to do with his recently expressed 
views, for no true Christian and patriot can 
wish to perpetuate and extend an institution 
founded on the total subversion of the rights 
of man. 

REV. DR. JOHN N. WADDELL. 

Dr. "YVaddell is a man of considerable talent, 
but his prejudices are very strong against the 
North. He cordially hates a Yankee, and his 
poor distressed wife, who was a native of New 
England, was compelled to return to her home, 
where she mourns in virtual widowhood her 
unfortunate connection with a man who detests 
her land and people. Dr. "Waddell's sermons 
are very abusive. The North is the theme of 
animadversion in all the published sermons 
and addresses I have seen from his prolific 
pen. He has prostituted his fine talents, and 
22* 



258 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

his writings are full of cursing and bitterness. 
As President of La Grange College, Tennessee, 
lie might wield a great influence for good — an 
influence which would tend to calm the storm 
aroused by demagogues, rather than increase 
its power. His memory will rot, for the evil 
which he has done will live after him. 

MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM NELSON. 

I met General Nelson frequently at his head- 
quarters at Iuka Springs, Mississippi. Though 
the General was quite brusque in his manners, 
yet he always treated me with kindness and 
marked attention. Once while seated at the 
table with him, several guests being present, 
the following colloquy ensued. 

"Parson Aughey, I suppose you are well 
versed in the Scriptures, and in order to test 
your knowledge, permit me to ask a question, 
which doubtless you are able to answer." 

" Certainly, General, you have permission to 
ask the question you propose. I am not so 
sure, however, about my ability to answer it." 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 259 

" The question I desire to propose is this — 
How many preceded Noah in leaving the ark?" 

"I am unable to answer, sir." 

" That is strange, as the Bible so plainly and 
explicitly informs us. We are told that Noah 
went forth out of the ark ; therefore three must 
have preceded him." 

The General's wit "set the table in a roar." 
As soon as the mirth had subsided, I ad- 
dressed the General : 

" It is my turn to ask a question. Do you 
know, sir, where the witch of Endor lived?" 

" I did know, but really I have forgotten." 

" Well, sir, she lived at Endor." 

The laugh was now against him, but he 
joined in it heartily himself. 

Knowing that General Nelson had visited 
every quarter of the globe, I asked him 
whether he had ever seen any of the modern 
Greeks. 

"I never saw any of the ancient Greeks," 
was his curt reply. 

General Nelson was regarded as a brave and 
skilful officer. He has done good service in 



260 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

his country's cause. At Shiloh his promptness 
and efficiency contributed greatly to retrieve 
the disaster which befell General Grant on the 
first day of the battle. His rencontre with 
General Davis, which resulted in his own 
death, is greatly to be regretted, though his 
own ungovernable temper and inexcusable 
conduct caused his tragic end. 

I once visited his headquarters late in the 
afternoon. On my arrival, he informed me 
that I would confer a great favour upon him 
by guiding a company of cavalry on an expe- 
dition to the south-eastern part of the county, 
to which I consented. I rode in front with the 
officer in command. When we had reached 
a point beyond the pickets, my companion 
informed me that we would meet no more 
Federals; if we met any soldiers while out- 
ward bound, we might take it for granted that 
they were rebels. After riding about an hour 
longer, we encountered a company of cavalry, 
and were ordered to halt by the officer in com- 
mand. My companion, stating that they must 
be rebels, rode up and gave the countersign. I 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 261 

felt somewhat uneasy at the head of that com- 
pany at this time, not knowing the moment that 
bullets would be whistling around us. They 
proved however to be Federals, returning from 
an extended scouting expedition. I conducted 
our company to the house of a Union man, 
whom we aroused from his bed ; and learning 
that we were Federals, he took my place, and I 
returned to General Nelson. The General now 
desired me to go as a spy, to obtain informa- 
tion as to the number of troops stationed at 
Norman's Bridge, which spanned Big Bear 
Creek. I replied that I had ridden sixty miles 
without sleep, but that I would send two 
Union men of my acquaintance in my stead. 
This was satisfactory, and my Union friends 
returned with accurate information as to the 
number of rebel troops stationed at the bridge, 
and the best points of attack. The attack was 
made on the next day after receiving the infor- 
mation, and the rebels were surprised and 
totally defeated; but few escaped death or 
capture. 



262 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN. 

On the day that General Sherman reaehed 
Kienzi, I supped with him at the house of a 
friend. At table the following dialogue took 
place between us. 

" Are you the person from whom Sherman's 
battery took its name?" 

"I am, sir." 

"Many gentlemen in this county," said I, 
"and among them my father-in-law, have pipes 
made of the fragments of the gun-carriages of 
Sherman's battery, which was captured at 
Manassas by the Confederates." 

"Sherman's battery was not captured at 
Manassas," replied the General. 

" The honour of capturing Sherman's battery 
is generally accorded to the second regiment of 
Mississippi volunteers, which went from this 
county and the adjoining county of Tippah, 
though several regiments claim it, and many of 
my friends declare that they have seen Sher- 
man's battery since its capture." 

"I assure you, sir, Sherman's battery was not 



SLAVKRY AND SECESSION. 263 

captured — so far from this, it came out of the 
battle of Manassas Plains with two pieces cap- 
tured from the enemy, having itself lost none." 

At this moment Colonel Fr}^ ; who killed 
ZollikofFer, rode up for orders. While receiv- 
ing them, the horses attached to a battery halted 
in front of us. "There," said the General, "is 
every piece of Sherman's battery. I ought to 
know that battery, and I assure you there is not 
a gun missing." 

The pipes, canes, and trinkets supposed to be 
made of the wood of Sherman's battery, if 
collected, would form a vast pile ; and were you 
to inform the owners of those relics that they 
were spurious, you would be politely informed 
that you might "tell that tale to the marines," 
as their sons and their neighbours' sons were 
the honoured captors of that battery; a fact, 
concerning the truth of which they entertained 
not even the shadow of a doubt. 



264 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



CHAPTER IX. 

CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. 

Cause of the Rebellion — Prevalence of Union Sentiment in 
the South — Why not Developed — Stevenson's Views— Why- 
Incorrect — Cavalry Raids upon Union Citizens — How the 
Rebels employ Slaves — Slaves Whipped and sent out of 
the Federal Lines — Resisting the Conscript Law — Kansas 
Jayhawkers — Guarding Rebel Property — Perfidy of Seces- 
sionists — Plea for Emancipation — The South Exhausted — 
Failure of Crops — Southern Merchants Ruined — Bragg 
Prohibits the Manufacture and Vending of Intoxicating 
Liquors — Its Salutary Effect. 

The following is the substance of addresses de- 
livered by me on October 22d and 25th, 1862, 
at Cooper's Institute, New York, and before the 
Synod of New York and New Jersey, at its 
session in Brooklyn. 

I will confine myself to rendering answers to 
various questions which have been asked me 
since my escape to the North. I have viewed 
the rebellion from a southern stand-point ; have 
been conversant with its whole history; have 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 265 

been behind the curtains, and have learned the 
motives which impel its instigators in their 
treasonable designs against the Government. 

Slavery I believe to have been the sole cause 
of the rebellion. It is true that the slave- 
holders of the South were becoming strongly 
anti-republican. Rule or ruin was their deter- 
mination, and they would not have listened to 
any compromise measure after the election of 
Mr. Lincoln ; but this feeling, this opposition to 
republicanism, and lust of power, is the off- 
spring of slavery. In 1856 I heard Jeff. Davis 
declare that the people of the North and the 
South were not homogeneous, and that there- 
fore he advocated secession. The reason he 
assigned for this want of homogeneousness was 
found in the fact that the South held slaves; 
the North did not. 

Men accustomed to exercise arbitrary power 
over their fellow-men, will not cease their 
encroachments upon the rights of all with 
whom they are associated, politically or other- 
wise, and a temporary suspension of the control 
of the government is regarded by them as a 
23 



266 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

casus belli Slavery may therefore be justly 
regarded as the parent of secession. Whilst 
this cause exists, the South will be the hot-bed 
of treason. Slavery has produced its legitimate 
fruit, and treason is its name. With slavery 
intact, no compromise, if accepted by the South, 
would prevent another outbreak in a few years. 
The question has been asked, is there any 
Union sentiment in the South ? I reply that 
there is a strong Union sentiment, even in Mis- 
sissippi. This sentiment is not found amongst 
the slaveholders, for, as a class, they are firmly 
united in their hostility to the Government. 
The middle and lower classes are not only 
opposed to secession, but also to slavery itself. 
Eleven years' association with the southern 
people has enabled me to form a correct 
opinion, and to know whereof I affirm. I 
make this statement without fear of successful 
contradiction, that the majority of the white 
inhabitants of the South are Union-loving men. 
The slaveholders have long ruled both the 
blacks and the whites in the South. When the 
rebellion was determined upon, the slaveholders 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 267 

had the organized force to compel acquiescence 
upon the part of those who favoured the Union, 
jet wished to remain neutral. Their drafts and 
conscriptions swept them into the army, and 
when once there, they must obey their officers 
upon pain of death. To desert and join the 
Union army, was to abandon their homes and 
families, and all their youthful associations. 
Yet many have done it, and are now doing 
good service in their country's cause. 

The rebels punished with death any who 
declared himself in favour of the Union. In my 
presence at Tupelo, they were taken out daily 
and shot for the expression of sentiments adverse 
to the rebellion. If the Union troops at any 
time occupied a place, and the people expressed 
any favourable sentiments to their cause, upon 
the evacuation of that position, those who sided 
with the Union troops were cruelly treated. 
All these causes, and many others which I 
might mention, have prevented the full develop- 
ment of the true sentiments of the people. I 
could name many localities within the rebel 
lines where the great majority of the people 



268 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

bitterly denounce the Southern Confederacy 
and all connected with it. I could name many 
individuals who have declared to me that they 
would prefer death to a dishonourable compli- 
ance with the conscript law. I could name 
localities within the rebel lines where armed 
resistance to the conscript law has been made; 
but the safety of those loyal citizens forbids it. 
I know that there are some who assert that 
there is no Union feeling in the South ; but they 
are mistaken. The author of " Thirteen Months 
in the Eebel Army" found but little. His situ- 
ation was not favourable for its discovery. He 
informs us in his work, that after he had been 
compelled to volunteer, he regarded his oath (an 
oath much more honoured in the breach than 
in the observance,) of such force that he sought 
to obtain information, rather than to desert. 
He passed from one post of preferment to 
another, till at length he was on duty under the 
eye of Breckinridge himself, who complimented 
him upon his alacrity in bearing dispatches; 
and this was truly great, as he rode at one 
time sixty miles in seven hours, and at another, 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 269 

fourteen miles in less than fifty minutes. He 
also exhibited a guarded zeal for the secession 
cause. Who would have gone to an officer who 
was apparently aiding and abetting the rebel- 
lion, ably and assiduously, to communicate his 
Union sentiments? Any who would thus 
betray themselves could not be sure that they 
would not be shot in twenty-four hours. Had 
Mr. Stevenson been with me in Tupelo, and 
looked upon those seventy or eighty prisoners 
who were incarcerated for their adherence to 
the Union — had he witnessed the dailv execu- 
tion of some of them who preferred death to 
volunteering to defend a cause which they did 
not hesitate to denounce at the peril of their 
lives — had he been with me while in the midst 
of a host of Union citizens of Mississippi, who 
at the noon of night had assembled in the deep 
glens and on the high hills, for the purpose of 
devising means to resist the hated conscript 
law — he would have come to a far different 
conclusion. I have seen the cavalry go out to 
arrest Union men. I was at a Mr. William 
Herron's, in South Carroll, Carrol county, Ten- 
23* 



270 THE IRON FURNACE: OR 



nessee, and while there, several companies of 
cavalry came up from Jackson to destroy the 
loyal citizens of .that vicinity, and they did 
destroy some of them and much property. 
They passed within two hundred yards of for- 
tifications hastily thrown up to resist them, and 
would have been fired on had they come within 
range. Before completing their mission, a mes- 
senger came to inform them that Fort Henry 
was beleagured. They hastened to the fort just 
in time to take part in the action. After the 
surrender of the fort, they retreated to Fort 
Donelson, and were all captured at the reduc- 
tion of that fort, to the great joy of those 
Union citizens whom they had driven from 
their homes, and whose property they had 
destroyed. 

The slaves add greatly to the strength of the 
rebellion. Slave labour is extensively employed 
in the military department. They are the sap- 
pers and miners, the cooks, the teamsters, the 
artisans; and there are instances where they 
are forced to shoulder the musket and go into 
the ranks. I have seen and conversed with 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 271 

slave soldiers who have fought in every battle 
from Manassas to Shiloh. 

Many strong secession counties send more 
soldiers to the rebel army than there are voters 
in those counties. The slaves who remain at 
home, labour to raise provisions for the suste- 
nance of the families of the soldiers, and a sur- 
plus for the army; hence every white man is 
available for service in the field. "Were this 
slave labour diverted to some other channel, 
the result would follow, that a great proportion 
of the rebel soldiers would be forced to return 
home to care for their families, or those families 
must perish. In order to divert this labour, it 
would be only necessary to encourage the 
negroes to leave their masters. Wherever the 
Federal army has advanced in the southwest, 
the slaves have crowded into their lines by 
hundreds, and only desisted upon learning, 
much to their regret, that they would not be 
received, many of them being tied up and 
whipped, and then sent southward beyond the 
limits of the Federal army. Some who had 
travelled seventy miles upon the underground 



272 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

railroad, to reach the Union army, being asked 
by their fellow-servants upon their return, 
how they liked the Yankees, replied that 
"General Nelson sort o' hinted that he didn't 
want us." Upon being urged to be more 
explicit, and to state more fully what was the 
nature of the hint which led them to infer that 
General Nelson did not want them, their spokes- 
man replied: "Well, if we must tell, we must. 
General Nelson tied us up and gave us fifty 
apiece, and sent us off, sw'arin' he'd guv us 
a hundred ef we didn't go right straight back 
home to our masters. He said this wa'n't no 
war got up to set the niggers free." 

The Kansas Jay hawkers liberate all the slaves 
with whom they come in contact. I passed four 
regiments of their cavalry last August, on their 
way to Kienzi, Mississippi. They had about 
two thousand slaves with them, of every age 
and sex. Those slaves groomed their horses, 
drove their wagons, cooked their victuals, and 
made themselves useful in a variety of ways, 
leaving every white man free to go into the 
battle when the hour of contest arrived. 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 273 

Slavery is a strong prop to the rebellion. 
Four millions of labourers are able to furnish 
supplies for eight millions. Subtract that vast 
resource from the rebellion, add it to the sup- 
port of the Government, and its stunning effect 
would be speedily demonstrated in the complete 
paralysis of the Southern Confederacy. In order 
to supply the loss of the slaves, half the soldiers 
in the army must return, or famine would sweep 
both the army and the families of the soldiers 
from the face of the earth. One cause of the 
long continuance of the war is, that the Union 
army has endeavoured to conciliate the South, 
rather than crush the rebellion. They have 
guarded the property of the rebels ; they have 
returned promptly their fugitive slaves; they 
have put down servile insurrection with an iron 
hand, and in every possible way have shown 
clemency instead of severity. But their kind- 
ness has been abused, their clemency regarded 
as evidence of imbecility, and the humane 
policy of the Government totally misconstrued. 
Captain John Kainey, of Cambridge, Ohio, 
while on duty at Corinth, Mississippi, received 



274 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

an application from a notorious secessionist for 
a guard to protect his premises, which was 
obtained for him from the colonel, three sol- 
diers being detached for that purpose, who 
proceeded to the station assigned them. About 
four o'clock in the afternoon they saw the 
owner of the premises they were guarding, 
mount his horse and ride off. Supposing him 
to be going on some ordinary errand, they took 
no further notice of it. About nine o'clock, 
one of the guard who had strayed into the 
orchard, some three hundred yards from the 
house, heard an unusual sound, as of cavalry 
approaching. Concealing himself, he saw, by 
the bright moonlight, this secessionist ride up 
with seven or eight rebel cavalrymen, who, 
seizing his two companions, rode off with them 
as prisoners. The ingrate who committed this 
base and perfidious act then went into his 
house and retired to rest. As speedily as pos- 
sible the third picket returned to his company, 
and informed them of the occurrence. Fired 
with indignation, twenty men volunteered to 
visit summary punishment upon the perpe- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 275 

trator of this villany. Hastening to his house, 
they aroused him from his slumbers, and in 
a few minutes suspended him by the neck 
between the heavens and the earth. On their 
return they reported to their companions what 
they had done, and, through fear of punish- 
ment, took every precaution to prevent the act 
reaching the colonel's ears. It was reported 
to the colonel, however, whose reply to his 
informant was, " Served him right !" This policy 
of guarding rebel property by Union troops 
must be abandoned, or the war will never 
terminate. The Union army has been attacked 
by the rebels when large numbers of the sol- 
diers were absent as guards to protect the plan- 
tations and all the interests of secessionists. 
Such gingerly warfare must end, or the days 
of the Eepublic are numbered. Carrying the 
war into the enemy's country has thus far 
proved a mere farce. The retreating rebels 
destroyed tenfold more property than the pur- 
suing Federals. I would not counsel cruelty. 
I would not advise the unnecessary destruction 
of life or property, for all wanton destruction 



276 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

tends to weaken rather than to strengthen the 
cause of those who perpetrate it. Vandalism is 
everywhere reprehensible. The proper policy 
I believe to be this: Let the Union army be 
supplied with provisions, so fa»» as practicable, 
from the territory occupied. Let the slaves find 
protection and employment on their arrival 
within the Union lines. Despise not their valu- 
able services. Let it be proclaimed that for 
every Union citizen of the South who is slain 
for his adherence to the old flag, a rebel 
prisoner shall be executed, and that the confis- 
cated property of Union men shall be restored, 
at the cost of rebel sympathizers in the vicinity. 
Let these necessary measures be carried out, 
and no well-informed person can doubt that the 
war will cease before the end of six months. 
"With slavery, the rebels are powerful ; without 
it, they are powerless. "With slavery, every 
white man between the ages of eighteen and 
sixty is available as a soldier, and vast 
supplies are procured by servile labour. Abo- 
lish slavery, and the army would be immedi- 
ately reduced one- half, and supplies would be 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 277 

diminished to a destructive extent. Slaves 
armed and drilled would make effective soldiers. 
With a perfect knowledge of the country, with 
an intense desire to liberate themselves and their 
brethren from bondage, with an ardent hatred 
of their cruel masters and overseers, (and the 
majority of them are cruel,) they would render 
a willing and powerful aid in crushing the 
great rebellion. After the war is ended, give 
them as much land as their necessities require, 
either in New Mexico or Arizona, and they 
will furnish more sugar, rice, and cotton, than 
were extorted from them by compulsory labour 
in the house of bondage. 

The desire for freedom on the part of the 
slaves is universal. It is, according to my 
observation and full belief, a rule without 
exception. These aspirations are constantly 
increasing as the rigours of slavery are in- 
creased, and the slaves are as well prepared 
for freedom as they would be a hundred years 
hence. The Iron Furnace of slavery does not 
tend to the elevation of its victims. There are 
better methods of elevating a race than by 
24 



278 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

enslaving it. The moral elevation* of the slave 
is no part of the reason why he is held in bond- 
age; but the convenience and profit of the 
master is the sole end and aim of the peculiar 
institution. All attempts on the part of the 
slaves to obtain their liberty are resisted by the 
slaveholders, by the infliction of appalling and 
barbarous cruelties. Thirty-two negroes were 
executed at Natchez, Mississippi, recently, 
because they expressed a determination "to 
go to Lincoln." Six were hanged in Hoxubee 
county, and one burned in the streets of Macon. 
The southern papers state that Hon. Mr. Orr, of 
South Carolina, attempted to drive his slaves 
into the interior, to prevent their escaping to 
the Yankees, and upon their refusal to go, he 
ordered them to be driven at the point of the 
bayonet, and in the execution of the order, fifty 
of them were slain. There are instances in 
which the slave is greatly attached to his mas- 
ter's family, but his love of liberty is greater 
than that attachment. It often transcends his 
love for his own family, which he abandons for 
its sake, risking his life on the underground rail- 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 279 

road, and enduring the rigours of a Canadian 
winter, that he may enjoy his inalienable rights. 

The southwest is already nearly exhausted. 
The troops which first went into the service 
were well supplied with clothing, provisions, 
and money ; but the conscripts were poorly clad, 
and received their wages in Confederate bonds, 
which have so depreciated, that ten dollars in 
gold will purchase one hundred dollars of the 
bonds. Great suffering is the consequence, and 
desertions are of daily occurrence. While I 
was in prison at Tupelo, eighty-seven of the 
Arkansas infantry deserted in a body. One 
hundred cavalry were sent to arrest them, but 
they defeated the cavalry in a fair fight, and 
went on their way rejoicing. Tennesseeans and 
Kentuckians could not be trusted on picket 
duty, their proclivity for desertion being noto- 
rious. They suffered no opportunity to escape 
them, and often went off in squads. Many of 
them being forced into the service, did not con- 
sider their involuntary oath binding. 

The wheat crop of 1862, in the southwest, was 
almost totally destroyed by the rust, and the 



280 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



corn crop by the drought. Salt could not be 
obtained at any cost, and every marketable 
commodity had reached a fabulous price. South- 
ern merchants feel that they are ruined. At the 
commencement of the war they had made large 
purchases in the North, mainly on credit. The 
rebel Congress passed a law that all who were 
indebted to the North must pay two-thirds of the 
amount of their indebtedness to the Southern 
Confederacy. This the merchants did. They 
then sold their goods, taking cotton and Con- 
federate money in pay. The cotton was 
destroyed by order of Beauregard, and the 
Confederate scrip is worthless, and the Federal 
generals are enforcing the payment of Northern 
claims. This fourfold loss will beggar every 
southern merchant subjected to it. 

At the commencement of the war, strong 
drink was abundant, and it was freely used by 
the soldiers. Drunkenness was fearfully preva- 
lent. This vice increased to such a degree that 
the army was rapidly becoming demoralized. 
A large amount of grain was wasted in the 
manufacture of liquor. At this juncture the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 281 

rebel government wisely prohibited the manu- 
facture and sale of all that would intoxicate. 
Soon the wisdom of this measure was appa- 
rent. For a time this contraband article 
was smuggled in, yet it was only in limited 
quantities, and at the present time a drunken 
soldier is a rara avis in the army. At the first 
promulgation of the law, a cunning countryman 
perforated a large number of eggs, withdrew 
the contents, filled the shells with whiskey, 
closed them up, and carrying them to the camp 
at Eienzi, sold them at an exorbitant price. 
Others resorted to filling coffee-pots with 
whisky, stopping up the bottom of the spout, 
filling it with buttermilk, and if asked by the 
guards what they had for sale, would pour out 
some of the milk in the spout, and by this 
deception gain an entrance to the camp, and 
supply the soldiers with liquor. But all these 
tricks were discovered, and since the manufac- 
ture, as well as the sale, was prohibited, the 
supply on hand became exhausted, and drunk- 
enness ceased. 
24* 



282 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



CHAPTER X. 

BATTLES OF LEESBURG, BELMONT, AND SHILOH. 

Rebel Cruelty to Prisoners — The Fratricide — Grant De- 
feated — Saved by Gunboats — Buell's Advance — Railroad 
Disaster — The South Despondent — General Rosecrans— 
Secession will become Odious even in the South — Poem. 



BATTLE OF LEESBURG. 

The battle of Leesburg was fought on the 21st 
of October, 1861. The southern accounts of this 
battle were so contradictory, that I will not 
give the various versions. One statement, how- 
ever, all concur in — that when the Federal troops 
retreated to the river, after being overpowered 
by superior numbers, and had thrown down 
their arms, calling for quarter, no mercy was 
shown them. Hundreds were bayoneted, or 
forced into the river and drowned. The rebels 
clubbed their guns, and dashed out the brains 
of many while kneeling at their feet and 
imploring mercy. I saw one ruffian who 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 283 

boasted that lie had bayoneted seven Yankee 
prisoners captured on that occasion. 

BATTLE OF BELMONT. 

The battle of Belmont was fought on the 7th 
of November, 1861. I have heard repeatedly 
from- southern officers their version of the events 
which occurred on that occasion. General 
McClernand, for the purpose of breaking up 
the rebel camp at Belmont, attacked it in force 
at an early hour, and completely routed the 
enemy, pursuing them to a considerable dis- 
tance. Returning, he destroyed completely the 
camp, but delaying too long, large reinforce- 
ments were thrown over the river from Colum- 
bus, and the Federals were compelled to retreat 
precipitately to their boats, not, however, till 
they had fully accomplished the object of their 
mission. A scene occurred on this field which 
exhibits one of the saddest phases of this inter- 
necine strife. The incident was related to me 
by Mr. Tomlin, a lawyer of Jackson, Tennes- 
see, not unknown even in the North, who was 
personally acquainted with the actors. Colonel 



284 the iron furnace; or 

Eogers, of an Illinois regiment, led his com- 
mand into action early in the contest. A Ten- 
nessee regiment opposed him with fierceness for 
some time. At length they began to waver and 
exhibit symptoms of disorder. 'At this moment 
their colonel, who had been unhorsed, mounted 
a stump, and by an energetic and fervid address, 
rallied his men. Again they began to falter, 
and again his burning words restored order^ 
Colonel Eogers believing that the safety of him- 
self and regiment depended upon the death of 
the Tennessee colonel, drew a pistol from his 
holsters, rode up and deliberately shot him 
through the brain. The Tennesseeans seeing 
their colonel fall, fled precipitately. On the 
return of the Illinois troops, Colonel Eogers, 
impelled by curiosity, dismounted, and scan- 
ning the features of the colonel whom his own 
hand had slain, recognised his own brother. 
As the tide of battle had rolled past for the 
moment, he ordered the corpse to be conveyed 
to a transport, on which it was brought to 
Cairo, and thence borne to the stricken parents, 
who mourned over and buried the remains 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 285 

of their brave but erring child, who had met 
his fate at his brother's unconsciously fratricidal 
hand. 

BATTLE OF SHILOH. 

On April 6th ; 1862, the sun rose clear; not a 
cloud was discernible in the sky ; it was truly a 
lovely Sabbath, even for a southern clime. Early 
in the morning I took a walk with my little 
daughter, a child four years of age, in whose 
prattle I was taking great interest. We had 
gone about one hundred yards when my child 
exclaimed, "Pa, we must go back! it's going to 
rain; don't you hear the thunder?" The sharp 
and stunning reports I soon recognised to be 
the sound of cannon on the field of battle. 
The cannonading continued incessantly during 
the day. The whole country became intensely 
excited, and many citizens hastened to the 
battlefield, the majority bent upon plunder. 
On Monday the battle still raged with increas- 
ing fury. On Sabbath, General Grant had been 
completely surprised, and would have lost his 
whole army but for the gunboats in the river. 



286 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

These gunboats shelled the pursuing rebels, 
checking their advance, and saving the discom- 
fitted Federals. Buell arrived with his division 
on Sabbath night, and on Monday the rebels 
were driven at every point during the whole 
day. with great loss. When I heard the rebel 
officers state that the gunboats lying in the 
Tennessee river had checked their pursuit, 
and had committed great havoc amongst their 
troops, at the distance of nearly three miles, I 
supposed that the rebel army had continued the 
pursuit till they came in sight of the gunners 
on the boats, who then threw their shells into 
their advancing columns, and my mistake was 
not corrected till I saw the scene of action. A 
plateau extended from the river, where the 
gunboats lay, to the hills, a distance of about 
one-quarter of a mile. The hills rose to a con- 
siderable height, and were covered with a large 
growth, and on their frowning summits the 
lofty trees seemed to intercept the passing 
clouds. Grant's discomfitted and shattered 
army had taken refuge on the plateau. Some 
had even thrown themselves into the river, and 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION". 287 

swam across. Such was the position of affairs 
when the gunners threw their shells over those 
lofty hills, and beyond them a distance of two 
miles, into the midst of the rebels, checking 
their advance, and destroying them by scores. 
Couriers constantly passed to and fro to give 
information of the position of the enemy. All 
night long their shelling continued, causing 
Beauregard to change his camp thrice. Thus, 

"Bombs bursting in air, 
Gave proof through the night 
That our flag was still there." 

On Monday morning Buell's division ad- 
vanced, and the tide was turned. The rebels 
were driven from every position, and their loss 
was fearful; and had pursuit been continued to 
Corinth, their whole army must have been 
annihilated. General A. S. Johnson fell about 
three o'clock on the Sabbath. The tibial artery 
had been severed — a wound not necessarily 
fatal; but he remained in the saddle till he 
fainted from loss of blood, and when borne 
from his horse by Governor Harris and others, 
survived but twenty minutes. On Sabbath 



288 THE IKON furnace; or 

night Beauregard occupied, for a time, an old 
Presbyterian church — a rude log edifice. The 
church was named Shiloh; hence both Beaure- 
gard and General Grant, in their dispatches, 
named the engagement the battle of Shiloh. I 
was in Eienzi as the wounded passed down on 
the cars to the various hospitals below. They 
passed continually for a month. On the 18th 
of April I went down to Macon, in Noxubee 
county. A large number of wounded were on 
the train. A lady from the Female Seminary 
in Aberdeen had been placed under my care. 
When we reached a point six miles from Craw- 
fordsville, I noticed a young man looking out 
in an excited manner, and immediately after 
he jumped out and rolled down an embank- 
ment. I was much surprised at his conduct, 
but soon the crashing of the cars explained the 
cause. The train had been thrown from the 
track, and was rushing down an embankment. 
Jumping from the cars now became general. 
My lady friend arose, declaring that she also 
would leap from the car. I caught and held 
her till the danger was over, and thus pre- 



SLAVEEY AND SECESSION. 289 

vented perhaps serious injury to her person, 
as all who jumped from the train were more or 
less injured. On extricating ourselves from the 
debris of the cars, an appalling sight met our 
view. The sick, wounded, dying, and dead, 
were scattered promiscuously in every direc- 
tion. Their groans and piercing shrieks were 
heart-rending. The heavy fragments of the 
broken cars were thrown upon their mangled 
limbs, and in many instances this disaster com- 
pleted what Shiloh had commenced. As we 
came down, I passed through the train amongst 
the wounded. Some had lost an arm, several 
an upper lip, as many an under lip. Through 
the body of one six balls had passed. They 
were wounded in the feet, the hands, the head, 
and the body; and some who had not been 
touched by ball or bullet were paralyzed by 
their proximity to the exploding shells. Truly 
every battle is with confused noise and gar- 
ments rolled in blood. I remained some time 
at the destroyed train, aiding in extricating 
those buried beneath the ruins. The extent of 
the damage and destruction of life, I never 
25 



290 THE I180N FURVACE; OR 

accurately learned. It must, however, have 
been great. The catastrophe was occasioned by 
a stick of wood falling from the tender before 
the wheels of the adjacent car, which, being 
thrown from the track, precipitated the whole 
train down the embankment. 

For weeks after the battle of Shiloh, little 
was done by Federals or Confederates. The 
rebels firmly believed that Corinth could not be 
taken. Its evacuation discouraged the people 
exceedingly. Nothing but disasters had befallen 
them since the year commenced. Zollikoffer 
had been slain, and Crittenden defeated, at 
Fishing Creek. Eoanoke Island had been 
captured. Forts Henry, Donelson, Pulaski, St. 
Philip, and Jackson had been reduced. Island 
"No. 10" was taken, and New Orleans had 
fallen. The bloody field of Shiloh had pro- 
ved disastrous; and now, even Corinth, the 
boasted Gibraltar of rebeldom, fortified by the 
"best engineer on the continent," and defended 
by the whole army of the southwest, had been 
evacuated. What, under these circumstances, 
could resist the progress of Halleck to the 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 291 

Gulf? Many saw the cause of these disasters in 
the fact that the rebel generals had made their 
attacks upon the Union troops upon the Sab- 
bath; and all history confirms the truth that 
the army attacking on the Sabbath is almost 
invariably defeated. Universal gloom and an 
all-pervading spirit of despondency, brooded 
over the whole southern people. Had the rebel 
army been crushed at Corinth, or had Beaure- 
gard been vigorously pursued, and forced to 
fight or surrender, the war in the southwest 
would have been terminated. General Rose- 
crans informed me that they could have crushed 
the rebels at Corinth, and on my asking him 
why it was not done, he replied: "It would 
have been done at the cost of many lives on 
both sides, and it is not our desire to sacrifice 
life unnecessarily. Let Beauregard go down to 
the swamps of Mississippi; he can do us no 
injury. It is not probable that he will ever 
return to Corinth to attack us, and they must 
starve out in a section which never produced 
enough to sustain its own population." But 
Beauregard did not remain lung in the swamps 



292 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 



of Mississippi. He took the flower of his army 
and hastened on to Richmond, to reinforce 
General Lee, who immediately gave battle to 
McClellan, and drove him from the Peninsula. 
Halleck should never have suffered McClellan 
to be compelled to fight both Lee's forces and 
Beauregard's, whilst his own army was merely 
protecting rebel property and consuming ra- 
tions. I think General Rosecrans, had he been 
in chief command, would not have thus acted ; 
and his statement to me was a mere apology for 
the conduct of his superior, for his policy has 
ever been vigorous, and the rebels dread him 
more than any living man. The lamented 
Lyon also inspired a similar wholesome dread. 
I saw much of General Rosecrans. He is a 
genial, pleasant gentleman. He seems desirous 
of accomplishing his end by the use of mild 
means ; but if these will not effect the object, 
the reverse policy is resorted to. The rebels 
dread, yet respect him. He will do much to 
oblige a friend. I desired at one time to go 
with my family beyond the Federal lines. 
General Rosecrans went in person to General 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 2 ( J3 

Pope to obtain a pass ; but Pope's orders were 
that no passes should be issued for a specified 
time. General Eosecrans then asked and 
obtained permission to send one of bis aids 
with us, who conducted us beyond the pickets, 
a distance of five miles. This act, the General 
remarked, was in consideration of the kindness 
I had shown himself and staff while in Kienzi. 
The Federal generals committed a great mis- 
take in desiring to overrun the country without 
destroying the rebel armies. A physician who 
drives a disease from one limb only to appear 
in a more aggravated form in another, accom- 
plishes nothing. And when a general permits 
a hostile army to change its location as a stra- 
tegic movement, he has accomplished nothing, 
except giving aid and comfort to the enemy. 
The rebels estimated their forces at the battle 
of Shiloh at eighty thousand. Though con- 
siderable accessions had been received, yet in 
consequence of sickness and desertion, their 
number was about the same at the evacuation 
of Corinth. They lost about eleven thousand, 
slain, wounded, and prisoners, in the battle. 
2o* 



294 THE IRON FURNACE; OR 

War has a tendency to engender great 
bitterness of feeling between the belligerents. 
The secessionists hate the northern people, 
but not with the intensity of hatred which 
they exercise toward the Union-loving citi- 
zens of the South. In South Carolina, in 
the days of nullification, the nullifiers and 
Union men were very bitter in their hostility 
against each other. After the suppression of 
nullification by General Jackson, the cause 
being removed, the enmity ceased, and in a 
short time, the odium attached to nullification 
became so great, that few would admit that 
they had been nullifiers. Let the supremacy 
of the law and the Constitution be enforced, 
and a few years hence, few, even in the 
South, will be found willing to admit that 
they were secessionists. The descendants of 
the Tories carefully conceal their genealogy; 
the descendants of the secessionists will do the 
the same. Slavery and secession will perish 
together; and the classes of the South who 
have been fearfully injured by both these 
heresies, will be fully compensated for their 



SLAVERY AND SECESSION. 295 

present distress by the vast blessings which will 
accrue to themselves and posterity by the abo- 
lition of an institution which has degraded 
labour, oppressed the poor white man, opposed 
progress, retarded the development of the coun- 
try's resources, taken away the key of know- 
ledge, caused every species of vice to flourish, 
impoverished the people, enriched a favoured 
class at the expense of the masses, caused woes 
unnumbered to a whole race — in short, has 
been the prolific parent of fraud, oppression, 
lust, tyranny, murder, and every other crime 
in the dark catalogue. 



"We are living, we are dwelling 
In a grand and awful time; 
In an age, on ages telling, 
To be living is sublime ! 

Hark ! the waking up of nations, 
Gog and Magog to the fray ; 

Hark! what soundeth — is creation 
Groaning for its latter day ? 

Will ye play, then ? will ye dally 
With your music and your wine ? 

Up! it is Jehovah's rally ! 

God's own arm hath need of thine. 



296 THE IRON FURNACE. 

Hark! the onset! will ye fold your 
Faith-clad arms in lazy lock; 

Up ! oh, up ! thou drowsy soldier, 
Worlds are charging to the shock! 

Worlds are charging; heaven beholding j 
Thou hast but an hour to fight; 

Now the blazoned cross unfolding, 
On! right onward for the right. 

On! let all the soul within you, 
For the truth's sake go abroad ; 

Strike ! let every nerve and sinew 
Tell on ages,— tell for God!" 



JUL -JL1334 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




